
AMERICAN AND BRITISH AUTHORS 



A TEXT-BOOK ON LITERATURE 



"HIGH SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES, SEMINARIES, NORMAL SCHOOLS 
AND COLLEGES. 



v * y* 



\ 

m JUN 19 1897 4$ 

A GUIDE AND HELP IN THE PRIVATE STUD^^^g^EST-^^^^^ 
AUTHORS AND THEIR WRITINGS.^^»i^^iS=^*" 

FRANK V. IRISH, 

EDUCATOR AND AUTHOR : AUTHOR OF "GRAMMAR AND ANALYSIS BY DIAGRAMS, 
"ORTHOGRAPHY AND ORTHOEPY," AND "TREASURED THOUGHTS.'' 



All the arts are dwarfed by the power of literature. Each other art can 
express only some part of the mind ; music a part, architecture a part, paint- 
ing a part, but literature can express all the thoughts and emotions of the 
entire spirit. And this art one can carry with him when he travels ; it can 
flourish in one little room. It depends not upon wealth or house or gallery, 
"but where the mind has a common education there this art can find its home. 

Prof. David Swing. 



PUBLISHED BY FRANK V. IRISH, 

COLUMBUS, OHIO. 



BOOKS by FRANK V.IRISH 



GRAMMAR AND ANALYSIS BY DIAGRAMS. 
Cloth, 118 pages. Contains 600 sentences, dia- 
grammed by the improved straight-line system, 
with notes and explanations. Price, $ 1 .25. 



ORTHOGRAPHY AND ORTHOEPY. Cloth, 
128 pages. Price, 50 cents. For introduction, 
prepaid, $ 4.80 a dozen. 



TREASURED THOUGHTS— A Literary Gem- 
Book. Cloth, 160 pages. Price, 50 cents. Light- 
blue cloth finished in gold or silver, price, 
75 cents. 



AMERICAN AND BRITISH AUTHORS. 
Price, $1.35. For introduction, prepaid, $13.20 

a dozen. 

® ® ® 

Address all orders to 

FRANK Y. IRISH, Columbus, Ohio. 

Copyright, 1896, By Frank V. Irish 



TRAUGKR, PRINTER, BINDER, ELECTROTYPER, COLUMBUS, O. 



PREFACE 



Yet I would hazard the opinion, that if we could now ascertain all the 
• causes which gave them eminence and distinction in the midst of the great men 
with whom they acted, we should find, not among the least, their early acquisi- 
tion in literature, the resources which it furnished, the promptitude and facility 
which it communicated, and the wide field it opened for analogy and illustra- 
tion ; giving thus, on every subject, a larger view and a broader range, as well 
for discussion as for the government of their own conduct. 

Webster : Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson. 

The leaders of thought and the champions of great causes have 
ever been the men and women who, in their early and susceptible 
years, through great living teachers or great books, were touched by 
the life-giving power of genius, heard unforgetable voices in the air, 
and by the companionship of some master spirit were lifted to a 
"larger view" and "broader range" of thought and life. But this 
soul-awakening literature is the product of the imagination, or has 
been touched into life and beauty by this creative, most spiritual 
and Godlike of all our faculties. The low, heavy atmosphere of 
Fact suffocates Poetry, but Truth is the delightful mountain air she 
loves to breathe ; she rises and soars on the wings of the imagina- 
tion, and in the pure upper air sees only the truly great and beauti- 
ful things of earth. Literature is a culture study, and must be 
treated generously as a great liberalizing and spiritualizing force in 
education. Its supreme mission in the school and the home is to 
enrich, refine, and beautify life. We must approach it in the same 
generous spirit with which we go out to enjoy a delightful spring 
morning or a lovely landscape. Its highest forms elude us if we 
approach it as a task or for material gain. Literature, like Nature, 
reveals her choicest treasures and rarest beauties only to her lovers. 

A study of the classics is called a liberal education as the daily 
companionship of generously endowed natures and vigorous souls 
emancipates one from the bondage of the local and the trivial, makes 
him a citizen of the world, an "heir of all the ages." All truly 
great literature has this element of largeness and universality. It is 
founded on the primal ideas and feelings, and is true to Nature in 
her deepest and most pleasing manifestations. Homer, Dante, 
Shakespeare, and Milton belong to all times and countries. Most 
that the ancients wrote has perished. Much of what has been writ- 
ten more recently will be forgotten, but such poems as The Deserted 



4 PREFACE 

Village, The Cotter's Saturday Night, Snow-Bound, Evangeline, and 
The Vision of Sir Launfal contain the germs of immortality, and 
will continue to delight generous natures and to fortify and exalt 
the religious sentiments and the domestic virtues, the deepest and 
sweetest elements of human life. 

The purpose of this work as a text-book in schools and colleges 
and for use in the home is to lead the young into a love of the 
noblest literature of our own beloved America and that of our 
mother country, and to bring the youth of our nation into a gener- 
ous and sympathetic companionship with the master spirits who 
have taught us the dignity, power, and beauty of our mother-tongue, 
the richest of all languages, and have given us nobler pleasures, 
richer and deeper joys, and higher and holier aspirations. As a love 
of the pure and beautiful in literature leads to a love of the pure and 
beautiful in thought and word, and this love is a winning invitation 
to the pure and beautiful in conduct and life, the choicest thoughts 
of the noblest writers have been generously scattered through the 
pages of this book with the confident hope that they will surprise, 
delight, and bless like rare wild-flowers discovered in meadow or 
woodland. 

With a noble pride in the rich treasures of American literature 
and the lofty character of American authors, with a firm belief that 
the truest manhood and womanhood and the loftiest patriotism are 
developed and fostered most effectively by teaching our youth to 
honor and love the great writers, orators, statesmen, and educators 
of our own county, and with a further belief that our schools and 
homes greatly need and are ready to welcome heartily a text-book 
on literature that, without disparaging the illustrious writers of 
other countries and other times, places our great American authors 
first and foremost, this book has been written and is now entrusted 
to the generous consideration of all lovers of noble literature. 

After years of earnest toil in which he has kept constantly in 
mind the highest needs of the teachers and pupils in our schools 
and the parents and children in our homes, confidently believing 
that the book into which he has wrought his deepest convictions, 
noblest thoughts, and most generous emotions cannot fail to carry 
help and inspiration to other lives, the author trustfully sends it 
forth on its mission. 

FRANK V. IRISH, 
Columbus, Ohio, August, 1896. 



HINTS TO TEACHERS 



The great service of genius, speaking through art and literature, is to 
pierce through our callousness and indifference and give us fresh impressions 
of things as they really are; to present things in new combinations, or from 
new points of view, so that they shall surprise and delight us like a new revela- 
tion. When poetry does this, or when art does it, or when science does it, it 
recreates the world for us, and for the moment we are again Adam in paradise. 

John Burroughs : Riverby. 

1. The teacher should keep constantly in mind that the life- 
giving power of noble literature is what the young most need. All 
facts about an author and his works are of minor importance, and 
should only be used to lead to an appreciation of his choicest writ- 
ings and his noblest traits of character. 

2. As all truly great literature is universal, and depends but 
slightly on time and place, periods of literature, dates, etc., are of 
secondary importance. To study British authors in groups, using 
such works as Green's Short History of the English People instead 
of the so-called Histories of Literature, is an excellent method. 

3. As our best writers have gleaned their finest thoughts and 
illustrations as well as caught their noblest inspirations from its 
pages, so that the beauties of our literature are lost to one who is 
not familiar with the Book of books, the author has given the Bible 
a place, as a literary work, in this book. " We hear the echoes of its 
speech everywhere ; and the music of its familiar phrases haunts 
all the fields and groves of our fine literature." 

4. Send ten cents to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for their illus- 
trated catalogue to use in your school. Ask parents to aid in put- 
ting the best books in your school library. Urge each pupil to start 
a library of his own, adding choice books as he can. 

5. Literature should bring our pupils noble ideals. Avoid 
speaking of the personal deformities or failings of authors. Hold 
before your pupils what is beautiful and noble. A beautiful poem or 
a piece of noble prose is a work of art. You have no more right to 
mar it than to mar a beautiful statue or fine painting. Do not ask 
pupils to change poetry into prose. Read or have some pupil read 
fine productions to the school. Let the pupils enjoy the beauty, 
drink in the noble sentiments, and carry the music and the melody 
in their hearts to enrich and beautify their lives. ( F V I 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

PREFACE 3 

HINTS TO TEACHERS 5 

OUTLINE OF LITERATURE-- 8 

INTRODUCTION 9 

WASHINGTON IRVING 12 

WII.LIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 22 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW .... 35 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 50 

JOHN G. WHITTIER 65 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL- ■• 84 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.... 103 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE--- 119 

HENRY D. THOREAU 134 

EDGAR ALLAN POE 142 

BAYARD TAYLOR 150 

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 158 

ALICE CARY 164 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE- 169 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER •• 171 
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.. 172 

WILLIAM E- CHANNING 174 

GEORGE BANCROFT 176 

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT 178 

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.... 179 

FRANCIS PARKMAN 180 

DANIEL WEBSTER 181 

EDWARD EVERETT 185 

CHARLES SUMNER 187 

WENDELL PHILLIPS 190 

HORACE MANN 193 

ADDITIONAL AMERICAN 

AUTHORS 198 

LITERARY RECREATIONS-... 218 
GROUPS OF BRITISH 

AUTHORS (OUTLINE) 220 

ALFRED TENNYSON 221 

MRS. E. B. BROWNING 224 

ROBERT BROWNING 227 

JEAN INGELOW 229 

T. B. MACAULAY 231 



PAGE 

CHARLES DICKENS 233 

GEORGE ELIOT 236 

W. M. THACKERAY 240 

THOMAS CARLYLE 242 

JOHN RUSKIN 244 

MATTHEW ARNOLD 247 

WALTER SCOTT 249 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 252 

GEORGE GORDON BYRON.... 255 
CONTEMPORARY WRITERS . - 257 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH 265 

SAMUEL JOHNSON 267 

THOMAS GRAY 269 

ROBERT BURNS 271 

WILLIAM COWPER 274 

CONTEMPORARY WRITERS . . 277 

ALEXANDER POPE 278 

JOSEPH ADDISON 282 

CONTEMPORARY WRITERS . . 284 

JOHN DRYDEN 288 

CONTEMPORARY WRITERS . . 290 

JOHN MILTON 292 

CONTEMPORARY WRITERS . . 296 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 298 

EDMUND SPENSER 304 

FRANCIS BACON 307 

CONTEMPORARY WRITERS . . 309 

GEOFFREY CHAUCER 311 

CONTEMPORARY WRITERS . . 314 

THE CLASSICS 315 

THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC... 318 

HELPFUL THOUGHTS 325 

AUTHORS' BIRTHDAYS 328 

POETS LAUREATE 329 

ADDITIONAL NINETEENTH 

CENTURY BRITISH 

AUTHORS 330 

LITERARY RECREATIONS... 338 
INDEX ; . . 340 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



(Portraits of Authors and Pictures of their Homes) 

PAGE 

WASHINGTON IRVING 12 

SUNNYSIDE 16 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 22 

BRYANT HOMESTEAD, CUMMINGTON, MASS 28 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 35 

LONGFELLOW'S HOME, CAMBRIDGE, MASS 41 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 50 

DR. HOLMES'S BIRTHPLACE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. , 55 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 65 

WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE, HAVERHILL, MASS 69 

WHITTIER'S HOME, AMESBURY : MASS 76 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 84 

ELMWOOD 89 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON 103 

EMERSON'S HOME, CONCORD, MASS 110 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 119 

THE OLD MANSE 126 

THE WAYSIDE 127 

HENRY D. THOREAU 134 

EDGAR ALLAN POE 142 

BAYARD TAYLOR 151 

J. G. HOLLAND 158 

ALICE GARY 164 

PHCEBE CARY 166 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 169 



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INTRODUCTION 



X^5f(|N its general meaning literature comprises all the 
>*3xl written and printed productions of the human 
/£^3) mind ; but in its highest sense only such pro- 
ductions as are elevated and vigorous in thought, 
refined and graceful in style, artistic in finish 
and construction, and which b}^ their power and beauty 
quicken and liberalize the mind and purify the affections. 
Literature exists in two forms, — Poetry and Prose. Po- 
etry is beautiful thought of metrical and artistic form 
expressed in rythmical and melodious language. 1 Prose 
is the ordinary form of speech or writing, without rhyme 
or meter. 

To love the best literature is to possess the truest 
and most imperishable of earthly riches. Such a love 
gives to the young what they most need. It creates 
and sustains high and beautiful ideals of human life, 
gives them the choicest companions and truest friends, 
and enlarges their mental and spiritual horizon. It en- 
ables them to keep the keen appreciation, sweet trust- 
fulness, and beautiful simplicity of childhood, while it 



\ 1 Poetry is rhythmical, imaginative language, expressing the invention,, 
taste, thought, passion, and insight of the human soul — E. C Stedman. 

Poetry is a great and beautiful utterance set in an artistic frame. As a 
river moves along ornamented by its banks on which wave trees and grass 
and nutter the wings of happy birds, so rhyme and rhythm and metric feet 
are only the attractive borders of some deep stream of truth.— Prof. Swing. 



10 INTRODUCTION 

multiplies both their powers of usefulness and sources of 
happiness. Prof. David Swing's tribute to noble litera- 
ture is too beautiful to be omitted : ' ' Literature proper 
is the gallery of spiritual ideals. There we meet Antig- 
one and Hypatia and Evangeline; there we meet all the 
dream - faces that ever stood before the soul of genius ; 
and there we meet such blessed realities as Christ him- 
self. It is that sacred mountain -top upon which hu- 
manity becomes transfigured and passes a few hours in 
shining garments for the body and in rapture for the 
soul. Man should expand these hours into days and the 
days into life." 

It is to this great literature, the literature of power, 1 
the supreme books, the masterpieces, loved by our youth 
and studied in both schools' and homes, that we must 
look for the ennobling and spiritualizing forces in edu- 
cation. 

"We are apt to wonder", says L,owell, " at the schol- 
arship of the men of three centuries ago, and at a certain 
dignity of phrase that characterizes them. They were 
scholars because they did not read so many things as we. 
They had fewer books, but these were of the best. Their 
speech was noble because they lunched with Plutarch and 
supped with Plato." 2 

Because of the pure, noble lives of American authors 
as well as the high moral tone of their writings, American 



IThere is first, the literature of knowledge (i. e., science), and secondly, 
the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach; the function 
of the second is to move. The first is a rudder, the second an oar or sail. 
The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ul- 
timately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always 
through the affections of pleasure or sympathy.— Thomas DeQuincey: Essay 
on Pope. 

2 Address on Books and Libraries. Riverside Literature Series, No. 39. 
Houghton Mifflin & Co. 



INTRODUCTION 11 

literature is peculiarly helpful and inspiring to the 3^oung. 
John Bright, the great English statesman, advised the 
young people of England to study the writings of Amer- 
ican authors, and said in conversation with a well known 
American: " I read your poets in preference to ours, not 
because they are greater poets, but because they are 
greater citizens. Your Bryant, your Longfellow, your 
Whittier, and your Lowell take part in the common life 
of the nation, and are all better poets because they are 
completer men." In a plea for "American Classics" in 
our schools, Horace E. Scudder says: "It is from the 
men and women bred on American soil that the fittest 
words come for the spiritual enrichment of American 
youth. I believe heartily in the advantage of enlarging 
one's horizon by taking in other climes and other ages, 
but first let us make sure of the great expansive power 
which lies close at hand. I am sure there never was a 
time or country when national education, under the guid- 
ance of national art and thought, was so possible as in 
America to-day. . . . Think for a moment of that 
great, silent, resistless power for good that might at this 
moment be lifting the youth of the country, were the 
hours for reading in school expended upon the undying, 
life-giving books! Think of the substantial growth of a 
generous Americanism were the boys and girls fed from 
the fresh springs of American literature!" 3 



Literary Gleaning. — Describe the outline of Literature. 
Give definitions of literature, of poetry. Quote wjiat Prof. Swing 
says about literature and poetry. What does John Bright say 
about American authors? 

3 Literature in School. Riverside Literature Series, Extra Number, Oct., 
1888. This "Extra Number" (containing- an address and two essays j and 
Lowell's address on Books and Libraries should be read by both teachers and 
pupils. 




WASHINGTON IRVING 

(1783-1859) 



I have glanced over the Sketch- Book. It is positively beautiful. 

Sir Walter Scott. 
Few, very few, can show a long succession of volumes, so pure, so grace- 
ful, and so varied, as Mr. Irving.— Mary Russell Mitford. 

If he wishes to study a style which possesses the characteristic beauties 
of Addison's, its ease, simplicity, and elegance, with greater accuracy, point, 
and spirit, let him give his days and nights to the volumes of Irving. 

Edward Everett's Advice to a Student. 

"Washington Irving! why gentlemen, I don't go up 
stairs to bed two nights out of the seven without taking 
Washington Irving under my arm", says the rollicking 
Charles Dickens. All agree Nvith Sir Walter Scott that 
the Sketch- Book is "positively beautiful", and many, out 
of the fulness of heart, would add, " and superlatively de- 



WASHINGTON IRVING 13 

rightful". Irving truly describes his own life and in- 
fluence in the following beautiful gem : ' ' How easy 
it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around 
him ; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of glad- 
ness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into 
smiles!" The Sketch- Book, like its genial author, is a 
perennial fountain of innocent and ennobling enjoyment, 
mellowing, enriching, and beautifying human life, teach- 
ing how to keep the simplicity, sympathy, and keen 
delights of childhood, and how to grow old gracefully, 
even beautifully. The Voyage, Rip Va?i Winkle, The 
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rural Life in England, Christ- 
mas, The Widow a?id Her Son, The Wife, The Broken 
Heart, The Pride of the Village — what delightful de- 
scription, what genial humor, what tender pathos — how 
all the sacred relationships of life are touched with the 
delicate skill of the true artist and the tender sympathy 
of a loving friend! Love, marriage, wife, mother, home, 
childhood, all that makes life sweet and beautiful is made 
sweeter and more beautiful by the magic pen, manly sen- 
timents, and pure life of Washington Irving. 

Irving's childhood and early manhood were spent in 
New York City. His school education was that of the 
common -school only, but the companionship of older 
brothers, who were men of intelligence and refined lit- 
erary taste, together with a well -selected library, made 
this young dreamer rich in what seems admirably suited 
for " nourishing a youth sublime". In "The Author's 
Account of Himself", at the beginning of the Sketch- 



What is this literature which being one and inseparable moves through 
the sea of life like our sun through the blue? One of the greatest distin- 
guishing traits is found in the fact that it is that part of thought that is ut- 
tered for the whole human family. It is the wisdom of God and the beauty 
of God attempting to reappear in the life of man.— Prof. Swing. 



14 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Book, he writes : "I was always fond of visiting new 
scenes and observing strange characters and manners. 
Even when a child I began my travels, and made many 
tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown regions 
of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, 
and the emolument of the town crier. As I grew into 
boyhood, I extended the range of my observations. My 
holiday afternoons were spent in rambles about the sur- 
rounding country. I made myself familiar with all the 
places famous in history or fable." Again he writes: 
"How wistfully would I wander about the pier heads 
in fine weather, and watch the parting ships, bound to 
distant climes — with what longing eyes would I gaze 
after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination 
to the ends of the earth!" 

Like Bryant and Lowell, Irving studied law, but soon 
discovered that literature, not law, had won his heart, and 
that he loved the companionship of Bunyan rather than 
Blackstone. 

At the age of twenty -one, hoping to gain rugged 
health, and wishing to gratify the longing to cross the 
ocean and visit noted people and places, he spent two 
years in Europe, loitering about in England, Holland, 
Belgium, and Italy. In Rome he met Washington All- 
ston, then unknown to fame, and was so completely cap- 
tivated by the young Southerner that he dreamed of 
becoming a painter himself in order to enjoy the com- 
panionship of this brilliant young artist. In 1806, having 
added to his natural charms of conversation and manner 
the culture and rich experience gained by travel in foreign 



The object of literature in education is to open the mind, to correct it, 
to refine it, to enable it to comprehend and digest its knowledge, to give it 
power over its faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, 
sagacity, address, and expression.— John Henry Newman. 



WASHINGTON IRVING 15 

lands, Irving returned to New York, and was greatly 
admired and much sought after by people of intelligence 
and refinement. He enjoyed three delightful years with 
health, happiness, and hosts of true friends, then came 
a mighty sorrow — the tragedy of his life. In these happy 
years he had learned to love a beautiful and noble young 
girl, Matilda Hoffman, and had won her heart. While 
dreaming of future home joys and preparing to claim as 
his bride the girl he loved so tenderly, her health began 
to fail, she lingered a few brief weeks, and then death 
deprived him of her companionship. For half a century, 
even to the hour of his death, he carried this sorrow 
sacredly in his heart. Who but such a man, with a sor- 
row like this, and a constant memory of beautiful woman- 
hood, could have written with such pathetic tenderness 
The Broken Heart, The Wife, The Pride of the Village! 
He never married. After his death, these words, intended 
for his eye only, were found in a little private notebook : 
" She died in the beauty of her youth, and in my memory 
she will always be young and beautiful." 

The last years of Irving's life were spent at Sunny- 
side, his beautiful home on the east shore of the historic 
Hudson, about three miles below Tarry town. As one 
drives along the beautiful country road, and through 
"Irving's lane" among the trees he loved, crosses a 
laughing little brooklet, and suddenly beholds the cottage 
covered with Melrose ivy, the majestic river, and all the 
poetic loveliness of the place, he appreciates, as he never 
could before, Irving's tender words in a letter from across 
the sea : "I long to be back at dear little Sunnyside while 



All literature is one and the same thing, namely: The utterance of the 
human heart. I,et its name be Greek or German or English, it abounds in 
religion, pathos, sympathy, loving kindness. It always has been and always 
will be the portrait of man's inmost feeling. — Prof. Swing. 



16 



AMERICAN AUTHORS 



I have yet strength and good spirits to enjoy the simple 
pleasures of the country, and to rally a happy family 
group once more around me. I grudge every year of 
absence that rolls by." One can but think 

"What home-felt joys and infinite delights" 

would have blessed the life of Washington Irving had the 
gentle, lovable Matilda Hoffman lived to be the queen of 
his home as well as his heart. 




SUNNYSIDE 



Here at "dear little Sunnyside", at the close of a 
delightful Indian -summer day, in the autumn of 1859, 
the earthly presence of Washington Irving vanished from 
among men, but his Sketch- Book, The Alhambra, The 
Conquest of Granada, Life of Columbus, Life of Wash- 
ington, live on in the nobler character of men and women, 



By literature we mean the written thoughts and feelings of men and 
women, arranged in a way that shall give pleasure to the reader. 



Stopford Brooke. 



WASHINGTON IRVING 17 

and the memory of his pure, sunshiny life is a perpetual 
benediction. As we stand reverently by Irving's grave 
on the hillside overlooking the scenes he loved, and which 
he immortalized in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Long- 
fellow's beautiful poem, so full of sweet, sad, autumnal 
music, is ringing in the heart : 

" Here lies the gentle humorist, who died 

In the bright Indian Summer of his fame ! 
A simple stone, with but a date and name, 
Marks his secluded resting-place beside 

The river that he loved and glorified. 

Here in the autumn of his days he came, 

But the dry leaves of his life were all aflame 

With tints that brightened and were multiplied. 

How sweet a life was his ; how sweet a death ! 
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours, 
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer; 

Dying, to leave a memory like the breath 

Of summers full of sunshine and of showers, 
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere." 



Character and Criticism. — Irving was as quaint a figure as the 
Diedrich Knickerbocker in the preliminary advertisement of the 
History of New York. Thirty years ago he might have been 
seen on an autumnal afternoon, tripping with an elastic step along 
Broadway, with low quartered shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak— 
a short garment like the cape of a coat. There was a chirping, 
cheery, old school air in his appearance which was undeniably 
Dutch, and most harmonious with the association of his writing. 
He seemed, indeed, to have stepped out of his own books ; and 
the cordial grace and humor of his address, if he stopped for a 



It is a great mistake to think that because you have read a masterpiece 
once or twice, or ten times, therefore you have done with it ; because it is a 
masterpiece, you ought to live with it, and make it a part of your daily life. 

John Morley. 



18 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

passing chat, were delightfully characteristic. He was then our 
most famous man of letters, but he was simply free from all self- 
consciousness and assumption and dogmatism. — George Wiujam 
Curtis. 

A friend who saw much of Irving in his latter days thus de- 
scribes him : " He had dark gray eyes, a handsome straight nose, 
which might perhaps be called large ; a broad, high, full forehead, 
and a small mouth. I should call him of medium height, about 
five feet and nine inches, and inclined to be a trifle stout. His 
smile was exceedingly genial, lightening up his whole face, and 
rendering it very attractive ; while if he were about to say any- 
thing humorous, it would beam forth from his eyes even before 
his words were spoken." 

In his family, gentle, generous, good-humored, affectionate, self- 
denying; in society, a delightful example of complete gentlemanhood; 
quite unspoiled by prosperity ; never obsequious to the great; eager 
to acknowledge every contemporary's merit; always kind and affable 
with the young members of his calling; in his professional bar- 
gains and mercantile dealings delicately honest and grateful. He 
was, at the same time, one of the most charming masters of our 
lighter language; the constant friend to us and our nation; to 
men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, 
but as an exemplar of goodness, probity, and a pure life. — Wm. M. 
Thackeray. 

A Group of Irving's Friends. — Sir Walter Scott, Washington All- 
ston, James K. Paulding, Thomas Moore, W. M. Thackeray, George 
Bancroft, W. H. Prescott, Samuel Rogers, George P. Putnam, James 
Fenimore Cooper, Talma the tragedian, Prince Dolgorouki, N. P. 
Willis. 

References. — Longfellow's poem, In the Churchyard at Tarry- 
town; R. H. Thayer's poem, Washington Irving ; Life and Letters of 
Washington Irving, by Pierre Irving; Studies of Irving, by George 
P.Putnam; Mrs. Griswold's Home Life of Great Authors ; Sted- 



Artn in arm with a universal author, you are in living contact with the 
great facts and laws of nature and of human existence; you see them from 
the master's lofty standpoint, and your life is larger than before. 

Homer B. Sprague. 



WASHINGTON IRVING 19 

man and Hutchinson's Library of American Literature ; C. D. 
Warner's Washington Irving, in American Men of Letters; Eulogy 
on Irving, by W. C. Bryant, in Life of Bryant by Parke Godwin ; 
Washington Irving, by Donald G. Mitchell, Atlantic Monthly, June, 
1864; Thackeray's Nil Nisi Bonum (in Roundabout Papers) ; W. D. 
Howells ( in My Literary Passions ) ; American Humorists, by H. R. 
Haweis; Biography of Irving, The Critic, March 31, 1883 (Irving 
Centenary Number). 

Additional Facts.— Washington Irving, the youngest of the eleven children 
of William and Sarah Irving, was born in New York City, April 3, 1783. His 
parents were strict Presbyterians, but young Irving was fond of amusements 
and loved music. At school he liked to write compositions, but hated to "do 
sums". He loved to read books of voyages and travels, and to wander about 
visiting places of historic or literary interest. His favorite authors were 
Chaucer, Spenser, Bunyan, Goldsmith, and Addison. At sixteen he studied 
law with J. O. Hoffman, Matilda Hoffman's father. Matilda Hoffman died in 
1809. At first Irving wrote under the pen names of "Jonathan Oldstyle", 
"Launcelot Langstaff, Esquire", " Diedrich Knickerbocker" and "Geoffrey 
Crayon". Irving is called "The Dutch Herodotus", "The Father of American 
Letters", "The Addison of American Literature ", and "The First Ambassador 
sent by the New World of Letters to the Old". Irving was familiar with 
foreign lands and cities, but was always happiest at "dear little Sunnyside" 
on the Hudson. A slip of Melrose ivy was planted and soon spread itself 
over the cottage adding greatly to its beauty. Irving dedicated the Sketch- 
Book to Sir Walter Scott. Irving was very fond of his nieces who watched 
over him during the closing years of his life. He writes: "I have Ebenezer's 
five girls and himself also whenever he can be spared from town, sister 
Catharine and her daughter, and occasional visits from all the connection." 
Irving's last work was his Life of Washington, finished a short time before 
his death. Irving's, study in the sunniest corner of Sunnyside remains almost 
as it was at the time of his death. He died at Sunnyside, November 28, 1859. 

Principal Writings.-— Knickerbocker' s History of New York, 1809; 
Sketch- Book, 1819-1820; Bracebridge Hall, 1822; Tales of a Trav- 
eler, 1824; Life of Columbus, 1828; The Conquest of Granada, 
1829; The Companions of Columbus, 1831; The Alhambra, 1832; 
Crayon Miscellanies, 1835 ; Astoria, 1836 ; Adventures of Captain 
Bonneville, 1839 ; Oliver Goldsmith, 1849 ; Mahomet and His Suc- 
cessors, 1849; Wolf erf s Roost, 1855; Life of Washington, 1855- 
1859; Spanish Papers, 1866. 



-Authorized edition of Irving's works, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons 
(12 Vols. $15). Selections from Sketch- Book, Riverside Literature Series 
(Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 15 cents each) ; and English Classic Series (Effing- 
ham Maynard, 12 cents each). 



20 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Memorize the following selections from Irving's Sketch- 
Book, finding each one in its connection by reading the 
"sketch" in which it occurs: 

A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue 
is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. — Rip 
Van Winkle. 

In rural occupation, there is nothing mean and debasing. 
It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and 
beauty; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated 
upon by the purest and most elevating of external influences. 
Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. 
The man of refinement, therefore, finds nothing revolting in an 
intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as he does when 
he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. — Rural Life 
in England. 

If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, 
rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy 
heart of one moment of sorrow ; if I can now and then penetrate 
through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent 
view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor 
with his fellow beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then 
have written entirely in vain. — The Christmas Dinner. 

He who has sought renown about the world, and has reaped 
a full harvest of worldly favor, will find, after all, that there is no 
love, no admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that 
which springs up in his native place. It is there that he seeks to 
be gathered in peace and honor among his kindred and his early 
friends. And when the weary heart and failing head begin to 
warn him that the evening of life is drawing on, he turns as 
fondly as does the infant to the mother's arms, to sink to sleep in 
the bosom of the scene of his childhood. — Stratford-o?i-Avon. 



We do not make the ocean, we only love it. We do not make the sun- 
sets, we only gaze on them until the night comes. Education must so care 
for us that we shall look with silent joy toward the western horizon when it 
is streaked with gold. We cannot ask the public schools to make us all into 
artists, but we can ask the schoolmaster or mistress to see to it that we shall 
love all the works that genius endows with beauty.— Prof. Swing. 



WASHINGTON IRVING 21 

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great 
minds rise above it. — Philip of Pokanoket. 

There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly 
fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but 
which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of 
adversity. — The Wife. 

Note. — For additional choice selections from the leading 
American and British authors, see Irish's Literary Gem - Book, 
Treasured Thoughts. Youth is the seed-time of life. Choice pas- 
sages from standard authors committed to memory in these early 
years are the seed from which we reap a rich harvest of larger 
life and deeper and sweeter joys. 

Literary Geeaning. — What is said at the bottom of the 
pages about "literature", "masterpiece", the "schoolmaster", and 
"education"? What do Scott, Miss Mitford, Everett, Curtis, and 
Thackeray say concerning Irving and his writings? Name his 
principal works. Tell about Irving's childhood, his closing years 
at Sunnyside, his last great work. Tell about Ichabod Crane, Rip 
Van Winkle, Katrina Van Tassal, Baron Von Landshort, Brom 
Bones, and Herman Von Starkenfaust. 



Education must lead to sympathy, to gratitude, to pathos, to joy, to 
tears, to benevolence. It is, indeed, leading thitherward, but not in volume 
great enough, nor with current swift enough. The rewards coming from the 
school are vast, but they are not as vast as the needs of the continent, nor as 
great as they would be were education more of a development of the affections. 

Prof. Swing. 




WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

(1794-1878) 

Marbles forget their message to mankind, 
In his own verse the poet lives enshrined. 
A breath of noble verse outlives all that can be carved in stone or cast in 
bronze. In his poems inspired by Nature, Bryant has identified himself with 
perennial life. In singing of Death he has won the prize of Immortality. 

O. W. Holmes. 
Bryant's writings transport us into the depths of the solemn primeval 
forest, to the shores of the lonely lake, the banks of the wild nameless stream, 
or the brow of the rocky upland rising like a promontory from a wide ocean of 
foliage ; while they shed around us the glories of a climate fierce in its extremes, 
but splendid in its vicissitudes.— Washington Irving. 

"Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
Comes a still voice." 1 



1 Thanatopsis. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 23 

With gentle dignity and sweet compulsion, the author 
of Thajiatopsis leads us away from the feverish city, the 
cares and worries of life, and trifling pleasures, to restful 
groves, ennobling thoughts, and richer enjoyments. 

"The calm shade 
Shall bring kindred calm, and the sweet breeze 
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm 
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here 
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men, 
And made thee loathe thy life." 2 

"Nature's teachings" wean from worldliness, lead to 
humility, ennoble the mind, soothe the feelings, purify the 
heart, and foster all that is sweet and beautiful in life. 

"While I stood 
In Nature's lonelines, I was with one 
With whom I early grew familiar, one 
Who never had a frown for me, whose voice 
Never rebuked me for the hours I stole 
From cares I loved not, but of which the world 
Deems highest, to converse with her." 3 

Writing of his childhood, Bryant says: "I was 
always, from my earliest years, a delighted observer of 
external nature, — the splendors of a winter daybreak over 
the wide waste of snow seen from our windows ; the glories 
of the autumnal woods; the gloomy approaches of the 
thunderstorm, and its departure amid sunshine and rain- 
bows; the return of spring with its flowers; ''and the first 

^Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. SA Winter Piece. 

The poet's office is to reveal plainly the most delicate phases of wisdom, 
passion, and beauty. Even in the world of the ideal we must have clear 
imagination and language : the more life-like the dream, the longer it will be 
remembered.— E. C Stedman : Preface to Victorian Poets. 



24 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

snowfall of winter." With what delicate touch and faith- 
fulness — the faithfulness of a true lover — does Bryant 
paint Nature! Read this in his poem, The Gladness of 
Nature : 

''There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower, 
There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree, 
There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower, 
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea." 

How different yet how true to Nature is this sketch in 
A Summer Ramble: 

"The quiet August noon has come; 
A slumberous silence fills the sky, 
The fields are still, the woods are dumb, 
In glassy sleep the waters lie. 

"And mark yon soft white clouds that rest 
Above our vale, a moveless throng; 
The cattle on the mountain's breast 
Bnjoy the grateful shadow long." 

Again in The Waning Moon: 

"See where, upon the horizon's brim, 

Lies the still cloud in gloomy bars; 
The waning moon, all pale and dim, 
Goes up amid the eternal stars." 

His poems, The New Moon, To a Cloud, Lines on 
Revisiting the Country, The Summer Wind, The Snow- 
Shower, and many others are full of beautiful descriptions. 
Bryant was a man of deep religious feeling, and his poems 
abound in sweet spiritual lessons. In The Yellow Violet, 
he teaches the lesson of humility; in The Fringed Gentian, 
Christian hope; in To a Waterfowl, he teaches beautifully 
the lesson of Divine Providence. How the following 
stanzas linger in our hearts, and strengthen our faith: 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 25 

"There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
The desert and illimitable air — 
Lone wandering, but not lost. 



" He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 
Will lead my steps aright." 



How can we praise the verse whose music flows 
With solemn cadence and majestic close, 
Pure as the dew that niters through the rose? 

How shall we thank him that in evil days 
He faltered never, — nor for blame, nor praise, 
Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier lays? 

O. W. Holmes; Bryant's Seventieth Birthday. 

William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, a 
little hamlet on the banks of a clear mountain stream 
among the hills of western Massachusetts. "A kindly 
figure" and "a stately lady" in his poem, A Lifetime, give 
us an outline sketch of his father and mother. A kind 
scholarly father who loved poetry, a dignified Christian 
mother, a good library, and a pleasant home in one of 
Nature's most charming retreats made an environment 
well adapted to foster pure poetry and rugged manhood. 
The district school, a study of Latin with his uncle, a few 
months of Greek and mathematics with a neighboring 
minister, and one year in college made the sum and 
substance of his school education. 

In his choice of a life companion, our young poet 
showed rare practical wisdom as well as refinement of 
mind and heart. Fanny Fairchild whom he describes so 



Poetry is the perpetual endeavor to express the spirit of the thing ; to pass 
the brute body, and search the life and reason which cause it to exist. 

Emerson. 



26 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

charmingly in his poem, Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids, 
was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer on Green River. 
She was a noble type of genuine womanhood, sensible, 
beautiful in character, and possessed "a wonderfully frank 
and sweet expression of face," and an indescribable charm 
of manner of which even the ravages of increasing years 
could not rob her. 

A friend who knew her well in middle life thus de- 
scribes her: "Never did poet have a truer companion, a 
siucerer spiritual helpmate than Mr. Bryant in his wife. 
Refined in taste and elevated in thought, she was charac- 
terized alike by goodness and gentleness. Modest in her 
ways, she lived wholly for him ; his welfare, his happiness, 
his fame, were the chief objects of her ambition. To 
smooth his pathway, to cheer his spirit, to harmonize every 
discordant element of his life, were purposes for the ac- 
complishment of which no sacrifice on her part could be 
too great." Another friend, who spent a week with the 
Bryants at Roslyn a short time before Mrs. Brant's death, 
writes: "Mrs. Bryant's health was very delicate, and she 
sat much in her large armchair by the open wood fire 
which blazed under the old tiles of the chimney -place. 
Mr. Bryant sat at her feet when he read in the autumn 
twilight those exquisite lines, ' The Life that Is.' Such was 
our last meeting with our dear Mrs. Bryant. I never saw 
her again, but the thought of her dwells like a sweet strain 
of music amid the varied notes of human life. The union 
between Mr. and Mrs. Bryant was a poem of the tenderest 
rhythm. Any of us who remember Mr. Bryant's voice 
when he said ' Frances ' will join in his hope that she kept 
the same beloved name in heaven." 



Its use is to lift the mind out of the beaten, dusty, weary walks of life, to 
raise it into a purer element, and breathe into it a more profound and generous 
emotion.— Dr. Channing on Poetry. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 27 

Mr. Bryant never ceased to love the scenes of his 
childhood. The quiet old mountains, beautiful valleys, 
restful groves, noisy mountain streams, and the rivulet, that 

" Oft to its warbling waters drew 
My little feet, when life was new," 1 

singing along within a few rods of the very door of the 
old home — all these were dear to his heart. Though more 
than half a century of his busy life was spent in New 
York City — 

" And there, mid the clash of presses, 
He plies the rapid pen," 

he often returned to the old home. His poems, Lines on 
Revisiting the Country, A Summer Ramble, and An Invi- 
tation to the Country, tell of these visits. In his old age 
he bought the old home, now called the "Bryant Home- 
stead," and fitted it up as a summer residence. Here with 
relatives and chosen friends, he spent several delightful 
weeks each summer. To ramble in the forests and along 
the streams he had learned to love in his childhood was a 
never failing delight to the old poet ; and even when he was 
eighty }^ears old, he enjoyed long walks in his native hills. 
His love for Cummington was shown in a most practical 
way. He presented the village a library of six hundred 
volumes, having purchased a beautiful site on a hillside, 
builded a substantial library building and also a neat home 
for the librarian. 

In the long drive through the country to the Bryant 
Homestead, we wind among the rugged hills along "Roar- 
ing Brook" and other mountain streams, through the 
41 venerable woods," surprised and delighted at every turn 

\The Rivulet. 



28 



AMERICAN AUTHORS 



by the wild mountain scenery of surpassing loveliness; 
while all along the way, out of its precious memories, the 
heart, filled, with the deep rich music of "God's first 
temples," is repeating noble and inspiring lines from Thana- 
topsis and A Forest Hyimi — treasures gathered in early 
childhood, now the abiding riches of the soul. 

Gladly would we linger amid the scenes he loved, but 
the sun has just gone down over the mountain yonder, and 




BRYANT HOMESTEAD, CUMMINGTON, MASS. 

we must approach, though reluctantly, the closing scene — 
the sunset of Bryant's life. In his poem, June, he ex- 
pressed a wish that in the beautiful month he so loved, his 
earthly life might close — 

" Blue be the sky and soft the breeze, 
Earth green beneath the feet, 
And be the damp mould gently pressed 
Into my narrow place of rest." 



Poetry has been the guardian angel of humanity in all ages. — Lamartine. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 29 

And it was granted that, 

" In flowery June, 
When brooks send up a cheerful tune, 
And groves a joyous sound," 

the spirit of William Cullen Bryant passed peacefully to 
the skies, and his body "was laid with bitter tears" in the 
cemetery at Roslyn beside that of his beloved "Frances," 
whose absence he had mourned for twelve long years. 

Say, who shall mourn him first, 
Who sang in days for Song so evil -starred, 
Shielding from adverse winds the flame he nursed, — 

Our Country's earliest Bard ? 

For all he sang survives 
In stream, and tree, and bird, and mountain - crest, 
And consecration of uplifted lives 

To Duty's stern behest. 



He bowed to wisdom other than his own, 

To wisdom and to law, 

Concealed or dimly shown 
In all he knew not, all he knew and saw, 
Trusting the Present, tolerant of the Past, 

Firm - faithed in what shall come 
When the vain noises of these days are dumb ; 
And his first word was noble as his last! 

Bayard Taylor : Epicedium. 



Character and Criticism. — "Very few people ever get so near his 
heart," said an old friend of William Cullen Bryant, as the poet 
pranced past the window, across the lawn, with a tiny, tousled girl 
perched upon his shoulder. Clinging by one encircling arm around 
the venerable head, with the other she emphasized her shrieks of 
delight while beating a vigorous tattoo with little heels on the 



What nobler task has the poet than to exalt the idea of manhood, and 
to make the world we live in more beautiful? — O. W. Holmes. 



30 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

watch-pocket below. It was the climax of the many romps we had 
together during the two months of vacation which Byrant spent 
each year at the old home in his native town. But all was not fun 
and frolic even in vacation time. Many long, quiet talks we had, 
w 7 hich became more serious and earnest as my head crept up toward 
his shoulder. Many are the sweet recollections I cherish of the lov- 
ing friend; many the precepts which come to me, always in the 
kind, soft tones, and with the earnest inflections with which he first 
impressed them. Others can tell you of the poet and the journalist, 
I can only tell of the playmate and friend ; others revered him for 
his genius, I loved him for his quiet, kindly, every-day living. 

Mary E. Dawes. 

Bryant was the landscape poet of New England scenery, the 
interpreter to man of the sights and sounds, the music and the 
melody, and the deep spiritual meanings of "Nature's teachings." 
As an artist, he ground his colors in Nature's studio, and mixed 
them with the dignity and beauty of his own native hills. Emerson 
was intimately acquainted with Nature, and saw in her deep spirit- 
ual meanings and symbols of ethical truth ; Longfellow conversed 
with Nature, and painted her in his pictures as a background of 
human action and life ; Tennyson was her friend, and introduced 
her in his poems to illustrate human action and ethical truth ; but 
Bryant was Nature's lover, and painted her faithfully and lovingly 
for her own worth and beauty. More than an acquaintance, nearer 
than a friend, he was her constant companion. Nature could never 
say to Bryant : 

"Dwell I but in the suburbs 
Of your good pleasure?" 

Bryant communed with Nature, and to him she revealed her 
most secret thoughts. She is not simply the embellishment of his 
verse. She is its very essence — its heart, its soul. 

As a journalist, Bryant rendered most substantial service to 
American literature as well as American manhood and womanhood 
by refusing to sanction our national sins — notably those of slang 
and exaggeration — sins against both rhetoric and religion. Like 
the man himself, his editorials were dignified in thought and lan- 
guage, and always appealed to the highest and purest motives of life. 
Eternity alone can measure the noble influence on our national 
life and character of the pure, lofty poetry and the rich, rugged 
manhood of William Cullen Bryant. His dignified bodily presence 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 31 

is no more among men, but Thanatopsis, To a Waterfowl, The Bat- 
tle-Field, A Forest Hymn, The Flood of Years, The Death of the 
Flowers, A Lifetime, have become a part of our national wealth — 
wealth not named in the census, but truer and more abiding riches 
than factory or field or forest. 

A Group of Bryant's Friends.— R. W. Emerson, H. W. Longfellow, 
O. W. Holmes, J. G. Whittier, J. R. Lowell, Bayard Taylor, W. E. 
Channing, Washington Irving, R. H. Dana, George Bancroft, W. H. 
Prescott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, J. R. Drake, J. F. Cooper, G. W. 
Curtis, R. H. Stoddard, S. F. B. Morse, Edward Everett, F. G. Hal- 
leck, Washington Allston, J. G. Percival, E. C. Stedman, John Bige- 
low, Henry L. Dawes, Thomas Cole, Parke Godwin, and J. Pierpont. 

References. — Whittier's poem, Bryant on His Birthday ; 
Holmes's poem, Bryant's Seventieth Birthday ; Bayard Taylor's two 
poems, Chant and Epicedium ; Life of Brya?it, by Parke Godwin ; 
Life of Bryant, by David J. Hill ; Mrs. Griswold's Home Life of 
Great Authors ; Poets' 1 Homes, by R. H. Stoddard; Poets of Amer- 
ica, by E. C. Stedman ; Bryant, by G. S. Hillard, Atlantic Monthly, 
Feb., 1864; Bryant's New England Home, New England Magazine, 
March, 1892 ; Bryant the Poet of Nature, New Eng. Mag., Oct., 
1894; Homes of American Authors, by George W. Curtis; The 
Bryant Vase, by Dr. Samuel Osgood, Harper's Magazine, July, 
1876 ; Bryant and His Friends, by James Grant Wilson ; The Boys 
of My Boyhood, by W. C. Bryant, St. Nicholas, Dec, 1876 ; Address 
before the New York Historical Society, by George W. Curtis, 1878; 
31emorial Address before the Century Club, by John Bigelow, Nov. 
12, 1878 ; William Cullen Bryant, by John Bigelow in Amer. Men 
of Letters. 

Additional Facts.— W. C. Bryant was born November 3, 1794. His father, Dr 
Peter Bryant, was the village doctor, and served several terms in the Massachu- 
setts Legislature. Dr. Bryant provided interesting and helpful reading for his 
children, such as Little Jack, Sanford and Merton, Evenings at Home, following 
with biographies, histories, the poets, and the best periodicals. Bryant's mother, 
Sallie Snell Bryant, is thus spoken of by one who knew her intimately: "No 
Greek or Roman matron of heroic days left a more spotless record of a busy life 



The sight of a star or of a flower, or the story of a single noble action, 
touches our humanity more nearly than the greatest discovery or invention, and 
does more good.— E. C. Stedman: Victorian Poets. 



32 AMERICAN AUTHORS 



than the poet's mother." The poem, The May Sun Sheds an Amber Light, refers 
to her. " Cullen," as he was called at home, loved to read and spent his evenings 
in his father's library. He says : " Upon opening- Wordsworth a thousand springs 
seemed to gush at once in my heart, and the face of Nature of a sudden to change 
into a sudden freshness of life." He began to write poetry when a child. His 
first poem appeared in the Hampshire Gazette for 1807. His satirical poem, The 
Embargo, was published the next year. After a year in Williams College, he 
studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1815, and practiced one year at 
Plainfield and nine years at Great Barrington. Thanatopsis was written before 
he was nineteen and appeared in the North American Review in 1817. He was 
married in 1820, and moved to New York City in 1825. He became connected 
with the Evening Post in 1826, and became the editor-in-chief in 1828, which 
position he held until his death. Bryant traveled extensively, making two 
visits to the South, one to Cuba and Mexico, and crossing the ocean six times. 
In 1843 he purchased a summer home called " Cedarmere " at Roslyn, Long 
Island, and here Mrs. Bryant died July 27, 1866. See his poem, October, j866. The 
other poems in which he refers to his wife are A Summer Ramble, The Future 
Life, A Dream, The Snow-Shower, The Twenty-seventh of March, A Sick-Bed, 
The Life That Is, The Cloud on the Way, The Path, May Evening, and A Lifetime. 
He had two daughters, "Julia " ( still living and unmarried ) is spoken of in his 
poem, An Invitation to the Country. The older daughter, " Fanny •' (Mrs. Parke 
Godwin), spoken of in Lines on Revisiting the Country, died several years ago. 
Bryant's last poem, The Twenty-second of February, was written February, 1878. 
His last address (on the unveiling of a statue to Mazzini in Central Park) was 
given May 29, 1878. Being partially overcome by the heat while speaking, as he 
was entering a friend's house later in the day, he fell striking his head on the 
marble steps — lived in a semi-conscious condition about two weeks, dying June 
12, 1878. Burial at Roslyn on the 14th. Longfellow, Holmes and many other 
noted persons attended the funeral. His brother John read selections from his 
poems, and the school children filled his grave with flowers. Mr. Bryant was 
pure, gentle, temperate, never touching strong drink or tobacco; seldom drank 
tea or coffee, walked much, never omitted his morning bath, ate simple food, 
mostly vegetables and fruit. A Unitarian in religion, he lived a simple and 
devoted Christian life. Bryant has been called "The Wordsworth of America," 
"The Founder of American Poetry," and "The Father of American Poetry." 

Principal Writings.— Poems (many editions); Tales of Glauber 
Spa (with others), 1832; Funeral Oration on Thomas Cole, 1848; 
Letters of a Traveler, 1850 ; The Life, Character, and Genius of 
Washington Lrving (oration), 1860; Letters from Spain and Other 
Countries, 1859; Letters from the East, 1869; Orations and Ad- 
dresses, 1873; Translation of the Lliad and the Odyssey, 1870-2; 



Man is the only creature that can transform the phenomena of nature into 
the attributes and properties of soul. The lower forms transform sunshine into 
soil, into coal beds, and thus treasure it up, but man manifests his divine nature 
for he changed the summers of Greece into literature and art and the summers 
of America into liberty and equality.— Prof. Swing. 




WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 33 

Library of Poetry and Song (edited), 1871 ; History of the United 
States (edited.) In 1884, a final edition of The Poetical and Prose 
Works of William Cullen Bryant, with many valuable notes, was 
published, edited by his son-in-law, Parke Godwin. A Bryant 
Memorial volume giving the proceedings of the Bryant Centenary 
at the old home near Cummington, August 16, 1894, with pictures of 
the Bryant Homestead, the village of ^nmmin -^^^^pwnrjrr"^ 1 " 
published, edited by L. H. Tower of Cummi 

Selections for Memori 

Father, thy hand \v<? 
Hath reared these venerable column? 
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou di( 
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose 
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, 
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, 
And shot toward heaven. — A Forest Hymn. 

It is sweet 
To linger here, among the flitting birds 
And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds. 
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass, 
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set 
With pale-blue berries. In these peaceful shades — 
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old — 
My thoughts go up the long dim path of years, 
Back to the earliest days of liberty. 

The Antiquity of Freedom, 
i 
Lodged in sunny cleft, 
Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone 
The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye 
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at — 
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves 
With unexpected beauty, for the time 
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar. 

A Winter Piece. 



84 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Yet look again, for the clouds divide ; 
A gleam of blue on the water lies ; 
And far away, on the mountain - side, 

A sunbeam falls from the opening skies, 
But the hurrying host that flew between 
The cloud and the water, no more is seen ; 
Flake after flake, 
At rest in the dark and silent lake. 

The Snow -Shower. 

Find the following quotations in Bryant's poems and 
Study the poems in which they occur : 

1. Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

2. And I envy thy stream, as it glides along 
Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song. 

3. And all the beauty of the place 
Is in thy heart and on thy face. 

4. The same sweet sounds are in my ear 
My early childhood loved to hear. 

5. And the brightness of their smile was gone, 

from upland, glade, and glen. 

6. Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky. 

7. This new life is likely to be 

Hard for a gay young fellow like me. 

8. Thy task is done ; the bond are free : 

We bear thee to an honored grave. 



Literary Gleaning. — What do Irving and Holmes say about Bryant? 
What does Mary Dawes say of Bryant when at the old home ? Name 
Bryant's best poems and quote fine passages from them. Tell about 
his childhood, father, mother, the " Bryant Homestead." Read his 
poem, A Lifetime, and point out the references to father, mother, 
wife. Tell about the "rivulet" and read the poem, The Rivulet. 
Tell of Bryant as an editor. Tell about his last years, his last public 
address, and read his poem, June. Name some of Bryant's friends. 




HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

(1807-1882) 

Every sentence that Longfellow penned is as clear as crystal and as pure 
as snow.— Encyclopedia Britantstica. 

He has composed poems which will live as long as the language in which 
they are written.— James Russell Lowell. 

I think that the poet himself, reading his own sweet songs, felt the apos- 
tolic nature of his mission, — that it was religious, in the etymological sense of 
the word, the binding back of America to the Old World taste and imagination. 

E. C. Stedman. 
"Ah ! gentlest soul ! how gracious, how benign 
Breathes through our troubled life that voice of thine, 
Filled with a sweetness born of happier spheres, 
That wins and warms, that kindles, softens, cheers, 
That calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears ! " 



These beautiful and tender words of Dr. Holmes in 
praise of his friend, Henry W. Longfellow, touch the 



36 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

musical and moral heartstrings of the American people, 
and awaken "the better angels of our nature" like the 
sweet songs of childhood. 

Few of the vast multitude who have learned to love 
Longfellow through his songs ever saw the face of this 
"gentlest soul," or were ever gladdened by hearing that 
voice, "filled with a sweetness," "that wins and warms, 
that kindles, softens, cheers " ; yet have not all our hearts 
been made more tender and sympathetic as we wandered 
and wept with the gentle Evangeline ? Memory even now 
repeats with measured cadence that beautiful tribute to 
woman's constancy : 

"Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient, 
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion," 

and those exquisite lines so full of moonlight beauty : 

" Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, 
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels."' 

And who has not been made nobler and truer by the 
companionship of the gentle, scholarly John Alden and the 
true-hearted Puritan maiden as they walked through the 
Plymouth woods, or across the fields, or watched the May- 
flower disappear over the crest of the ocean? Priscilla's 
sincere, womanly words linger with us: 

" Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in 
all things 
Keep ourselves loyal to truth and the sacred professions of 
friendship." 

And then whose heart is not thrilled, and filled with a 
deeper love for his country as he reads that ' ' sunburst of 
patriotism, the superb apostrophe to the Union," at the 
close of The Building of the Ship ! 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 37 

" Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! " 

A Psalm of Life touches the heroic chord of our 
nature, breathes new courage into our hearts, and sustains 
our faltering purposes ; The Builders, The Ladder of St. 
Augustine , and Excelsior, appeal to the manly virtues of 
self-reliance and heroic endeavor; The Bridge, The Day is 
Done, Nature, Hiawatha, Morituri Salutamus, and many 
other poems are full of tenderness and beauty ; and The 
Arrow and the Song and Santa Filomena stir the noblest 
instincts of our nature, inspire to beautiful and noble 
deeds, for the sweet song is " found again in the heart of a 
friend," and 

"Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, 
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, 
Our hearts, in glad surprise, 
To higher levels rise." 

The beautiful and tender poems, To a Child, Children, 
The Old Clock on the Stairs, and From My Arm- C hair , 
make Longfellow the favorite of the children. Our critic 
and essayist, E. P. Whipple, says: " The Village Black- 
smith and God's -Acre have a rough grandeur ; , and Maiden- 
hood and Endymion a soft, sweet, mystical charm which 
advantageously display the range of his powers. Perhaps 
Maidenhood is the most finely poetical of all his poems. 
Nothing of its kind can be more exquisitely beautiful than 



As true taste hates a bad picture, a low literature, so it must hate a con- 
temptible life, for all art is only the language of man's being, and therefore 
human life seems bound to live up to its own beautiful words. It must not sing 
a sweeter song than it can live.— Prof. Swing : Sermon, The Higher Criticism. 



38 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

this delicate creation. It appears like the utterance of a 
dream." — 

" Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
Morning rises into noon, 
May glides onward into June." 



In Portland, Maine, "the beautiful town that is seated 
by the sea," in the fine old ancestral mansion, then stand- 
ing in the open fields, Henry W. Longfellow was born 
Feb. 27, 1807, and here with most favorable surroundings 
and under most auspicious stars, he spent his childhood. 
His father, the Hon. Stephen Longfellow, a graduate of 
Harvard with Dr. Channing, Judge Story, and other noted 
men as classmates, was a man highly honored for his 
ability, integrity, and purity of life. Mrs. Longfellow was 
very beautiful in person and character, fond of music and 
poetry, an enthusiastic lover of Nature in all "her visible 
forms," and above all, a faithful, affectionate wife and a 
devoted mother. In his poem, My Lost Youth, the poet 
tells of his childhood home and its precious companion- 
ships : 

" I can see the breezy dome of groves, 
The shadows of Deering's Woods ; 
And the friendships old and the early loves 
Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves 
In quiet neighborhoods. 

And the verse of that sweet old song, 
It flutters and murmurs still : 
' A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'" 

After graduating from Bowdoin College in the class of 
1825, with Nathaniel Hawthorne as one of his classmates, 
to make special preparation for his work as Professor of 
Modern Languages in his alma mater, young Longfellow 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 39 

spent four years in travel and study in Europe, visiting 
England and residing in France, Spain, Italy, and Ger- 
many. About two years after his return from Europe, he 
married Mary Storer Potter of Portland, a beautiful, highly 
accomplished, and most amiable young lady. . They were 
deeply devoted to each other, and spent three years of 
happy home-life in the old college town of Brunswick. 
He gives this picture of a morning there : "I can almost 
fancy myself in Spain, the morning is so soft and beautiful. 
The birds are caroling in the trees, and their shadows flit 
across the window as they dart to and fro in the sunshine ; 
while the murmur of the bees, the cooing of the doves 
from the eaves, and the whirring of a little humming-bird 
that has its nest in the honey-suckle, send up a sound of 
joy to meet the rising sun." In that peerless class-poem, 
Morituri Salutamus , read here at dear old Bowdoin on the 
fiftieth anniversary of the class of 1825, he writes: 

" Unto these scenes frequented by our feet 
When we were young, and life was fresh and sweet." 

Elected to the chair of Modern Languages in Harvard 
College, and washing to make a study of Scandinavian 
literature and to continue his studies in Germany, he sailed 
for Europe in the spring of 1835, accompanied by his wife 
and two of her young lady friends. On this tour Mr. 
Longfellow met his first great sorrow. After visiting Lon- 
don, and seeing many of its noted people and places, 
spending a delightful summer in Copenhagen and Stock- 
holm, on their way to Germany, Mrs. Longfellow was 



How Karth does love all her working- children ! She carries them along 
and often when eighty years have passed the mind still possesses the animation 
and romance of youth. Long after the sluggards are dead and forgotten the in- 
dustrious mind runs on, the body borne along and aloft by the wings of the soul. 

Prof. Swing : Sermon, Building a World. 



40 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

taken sick, and after a short illness died at Rotterdam on 
the 29th of November. In that beautiful and most tender 
poem, The Footsteps of Angels, the poet has embalmed 
the memory of this young wife, "the Being Beauteous," 
who whispered to him with her dying breath, "I will be 
with you and watch over you." At Heidelberg, where Mr. 
Longfellow was to pursue his studies, he met Mr. Bryant 
for the first time, and was cheered and encouraged by that 
serene soul whose Thanatopsis had even given dignity to 
death, and made it almost beautiful. Mr. Bryant did not 
remain long at Heidelberg, but Mrs. Bryant and their two 
daughters remained through the winter and continued to 
cheer Mr. Longfellow in his sorrow and loneliness. 

In a tour through Switzerland the following summer, 
he found the tablet containing the inscription which he 
made the motto of Hyperion and of his future life: "Look 
not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. 
Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to 
meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly 
heart." It was on this tour that he met Frances Appleton 
of Boston, the "Mary Ashburton" of that delightful ro- 
mance, Hyperion, the poet himself being " Paul Fleinming." 
On his return to America in the fall of 1836, Mr. Long- 
fellow began his work in Harvard College, a work which 
occupied eighteen of the best years of his life. Along 
with the sad memories of the past came to the lonely 
teacher and poet happy memories of the delightful com- 
panionship of the beautiful, cultivated, and sympathetic 
Frances Appleton. He renewed their acquaintance, became 
a devoted lover, and seven years after their first meeting 



It is, indeed, the gift of poetry to hallow every place in which it moves; 
to breathe round nature an odor more exquisite than the perfume of the rose, 
and to shed over it a tint more magical than the blush of morning. 

Washington Irving. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



41 



beyond the sea, he claimed her as his bride. Mr. Appleton 
purchased for the newly married couple the historic old 
mansion called the Craigie House, where Mr. Longfellow 
had made his home since he came to Cambridge. It is a 
fine old-fashioned house surrounded by trees, and is on 
Brattle Street, on the way from Harvard University to Mt. 






LONGFELLOW'S HOME, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

Auburn. In the poem, The Old Clock on the Stairs, the 
poet gives this glimpse of his home: 

" Somewhat back from the village street 
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat." 

And as one enters the hall he faces the old clock: 

" Half-way up the stairs it stands, 
And points and beckons with its hands." 



This old house was once Washington's headquarters, 
and the room over the study, afterwards the nursery for 



42 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

the poet's children, was Washington's sleeping-room, and 
was the room occupied by Mr. Longfellow before his mar- 
riage to Miss Appleton. In his poem, To a Child, he 

writes : 

" Once, ah, once, within these walls, 
One whom memory oft recalls, 
The Father of his Country, dwelt." 



" Up and down these echoing stairs, 
Heavy with the weight of cares, 
Sounded his majestic tread ; 
Yes, within this very room 
Sat he in those hours of gloom, 
Weary both in heart and head." 

With honor, fame, and the choicest friends, the days 
at the Craigie House ' ' glided on like rivers that water the 
woodlands," peaceful and beautiful, and when as the years 
rolled by, lovely children came to complete the happiness 
of their home, the real life of Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow 
was deeper and sweeter than the beautiful romance of 
"Paul Flemming" and " Mary Ashburton." They enjoyed 
eighteen years of precious home-life with that sweet 
and perfect companionship which can come only to such 
choice spirits, and then, in the midst of all this happiness, 
came the sudden and tragic death of Mrs. Longfellow which 
changed the joy of this home into an abiding sorrow.* On 



*On the ninth of July his wife was sitting in the library, with her two 
little girls, engaged in sealing up some small packages of their curls which she 
had just cut off. From a match fallen upon the floor, her light summer dress 
caught fire. The shock was too great, and she died the next morning. Three 
days later, her burial took place at Mount Auburn. It was the anniversary of 
her marriage-day; and on her beautiful head, lovely and unmarred in death* 
some hand had placed a wreath of orange blossoms. Her husband was not 
there, — confined to his chamber by the severe burns which he had himself 
received. — Samuel Longfellow: Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 43 

the anniversary of her wedding-day, crowned with a wreath 
of orange blossoms, her body was tenderly borne to its 
beautiful resting-place on the hillside among the trees. 
Mr. Longfellow never recovered from this sorrow, but 
mourned her until the hour of his death. The entries in his 
journal in these years of sorrow are very touching indeed. 
Many of them are like these: "The country is beautiful, 
but oh, how sad! How can I live any longer!" "The 
glimmer of the golden leaves in the sunshine; the lilac 
hedge shot with the crimson creeper; the river writing its 
S in the meadow; everything without full of loveliness. 
But within me the hunger, the famine of the heart!" 

Mr. Longfellow's many noble friends were a constant 
delight to him, and, together with his children, were his 
consolation in these years of sadness. Among his early 
friends were Prof. Felton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and, 
dearest of all, Charles Sumner. Later in life were added 
Agassiz, Lowell, Holmes, Ole Bull, Norton, Dana, Fields, 
Curtis, Howells, Bayard Taylor, and many others. Emer- 
son, Bryant, and Whittier were friends, but lived too far 
away to be his companions. As these friends, one by one, 
passed from mortal sight, the poet felt the loss very deeply. 
Of his three friends, Felton, Agassiz, and Sumner, he 
writes touchingly in that beautiful sonnet, Three Friends 
of Mine. Of Sumner, who spent so many delightful hours 
at the Longfellow home, he writes : 

" Good night ! good night ! as we so oft have said 
Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days 
That are no more, and shall no more return. 
Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed; 
I stay a little longer, as one stays 
To cover up the embers that still burn." 



44 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

And of these three friends he writes : 

" I also wait ; but they will come no more, 

Those friends of mine, whose presence satisfied 
The thirst and hunger of my heart. Ah me ! 
They have forgotten the pathway to my door ! 
Something is gone from nature since they died, 
And summer is not summer, nor can be." 

Many years ago the poet himself ceased to walk along 
this pathway to his door, and how strange one feels as he 
reverently passes into the hall of this dear old home, and 
through the open door at the right, and stands with un- 
covered head, in the room where this "sweetest of all 
singers" penned many of his immortal poems! What 
scenes imagination paints ! Among these fireside scenes, 
how vivid The Children 's Hour ! One can almost say 
with the poet : 

" I hear in the chamber above me 
The patter of little feet, 
The sound of a door that is opened, 
And voices soft and sweet." 

And here are the books he loved ! And as we stand 
by the window where he often stood and gazed on the river 
he loved, memory repeats lines of that tender poem, To 
the River Charles : 

"Thou hast taught me, Silent River! 
Many a lesson, deep and long; 
Thou hast been a generous giver; 
I can give thee but a song." 

And here, too, is the chair made out of " the spread- 
ing chestnut-tree " and presented to the poet by the school 
children of Cambridge, the "splendid ebon throne" that 
inspired one of the poet's sweetest poems, From My Arm- 
Chair : 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 45 

" The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, 
And in it are enshrined 
The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought 
The giver's loving thought." 

And here is his pen, where he laid it down when he 
had written the last words of that last poem : 

"Out of the shadows of night, 
The world rolls into light ; 

It is daybreak everywhere." 

How fitting that these words, full of hope and cheer 
and the sound of victory, should close the last song of this 
gentle singer who had brought so much sunshine and 
sweetness into earthly hearts and homes ! How beautiful 
is an old age like this ! Lowell's sweet prayer for his 
neighbor and friend was answered : 

" Long days be his, and each as lusty-sweet 
As gracious natures find his song to be ; 
May Age steal on with softly-cadenced feet 
Falling in music, as for him were meet 

Whose choicest verse is harsher-toned than he ! " 

In the early springtime when the woodland songsters 
were caroling their first sweet songs, Henry W. Longfellow 
vanished from among our earthly singers, and went "to 
join the choir invisible." His body, beautiful even in 
death, was borne to Mt. Auburn and by loving hands was 
laid by the side of that of his companion whom he had 
mourned for more than twenty long years. Truly his 
passing from earth ' ' seemed like the ceasing of exquisite 
music," and is eloquently described by his friend and 
fellow-poet, E. C. Stedman : "I see him, a silver-haired 
minstrel, touching melodious keys, playing and singing in 
the twilight, within the sound of the rote of the sea. There 
he lingers late ; the curfew bell has tolled and the darkness- 



46 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

closes round, till at last that tender voice is silent, and he 
softly moves unto his rest." 

Hushed now the sweet consoling tongue 
Of him whose lyre the Muses strung ; 
His last low swan-song has been sung! 

Whittier. 



Character and Criticism. — Our true rise of Poetry may be dated 
from Longfellow's method of exciting an interest in it, as an expres- 
sion of beauty and feeling, at a time when his countrymen were 
ready for something more various and human than the current med- 
itations on nature. It was inevitable that he should first set his face 
toward a light beyond the sea, and I have said that his youthful 
legend aptly was Outre-Mer. An escape was in order from the 
asceticism which two centuries had both modified and confirmed. 
How could this be effected? Not at once by the absolute presenta- 
tion of beauty. A Keats, pledged to this alone, could not have 
propitiated the ancestral spirit. Puritanism was opposed to beauty 
as a strange god, and to sentiment as an idle thing. Longfellow 
so adapted the beauty and sentiment of other lands to the convic- 
tions of his people, as to beguile their reason through the finer 
senses, and speedily to satisfy them that loveliness and righteousness 
may go together. His poems, like pictures seen on household walls, 
were a protest against barrenness and the symptoms of a new taste. 

E. C. Stedman. 

He does not make rhetoric stand for passion, nor vagueness for 
profundity; nor, on the other hand, is he such a voluntary and mali- 
cious " Bohemian " as to conceive that either in life or letters a man 
is released from the plain rules of morality. Indeed, he used to be 
accused of preaching in his poetry by gentle critics, who held that 
Elysium was to be found in an oyster-cellar, and that intemperance 
was the royal prerogative of genius. His literary scholarship, also 
his delightful familiarity with the pure literature of all languages 
and times, must rank Longfellow among the learned poets. — George 
W. Curtis. 

His dignity and grace, and the beautiful refinement of his 
countenance, together with his perfect taste in dress and the 
exquisite simplicity of his manners, made him the absolute ideal 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 47 

of what a poet should be. His voice, too, was soft, sweet, and 
musical, and, like his face, it had the innate charm of tranquility. 

Wiujam Winter. 

Never have I known a more beautiful character. I was familiar 
with it daily, — with the constant charity of his hand and of his mind. 
His nature was consecrated ground, into which no unclean spirit 
could ever enter. — James Russeu, Lowew,. 

References. — Holmes's poems, To H W. Longfellow and Our 
Dead Singer ; Lowell's poem, To H. W. L.; Whittier's poem, The 
Poet and the Children; Edith M. Thomas's poem, Vale et Salve; 
Life and Letters and Final Memorials of H. IV. Longfellow, by 
Samuel Longfellow ; Life of Longfellow, by George L. Austin ; Life 
of Longfellow, by W. Sloane Kennedy ; Henry Wadsworth Long- 
fellow, by Francis H. Underwood ; Studies in Longfellow, by W. C. 
Gannett; Home Life of Great Authors, by Mrs. Griswold ; Literary 
World, Longfellow Number, February 26, 1881 ; Homes of American 
Authors, by G. W. Curtis ; Poets of America, by E. C. Stedman ; 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, by G. W. Curtis, Harper's Magazine, 
June, 1882 ; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, by O. B. Frothingham, 
Atlantic Monthly, June, 1882; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, by 
Anthony Trollope, North American Review, July, 1867 ; The Puritan 
Element in Longfellow, British Quarterly Review, July and October, 
1882; Glimpses of Longfellow in Social Life, by Annie Fields, 
Century Magazine, April, 1886; Riverside Literature Series. 

Additional Facts.— The poet's father was a lawyer, and at one time member 
of Congress from Maine. His mother was a descendant of John Alden and was 
the daughter of Gen. Wadsworth, a Revolutionary officer. Henry was prepared 
for college in Portland Academy. He entered Bowdoin College at fifteen, graduat- 
ing at eighteen. Studied law in his father's office a short time before he made his 
first trip to Europe. Began writing poems at the age of ten. First poem was The 
Battle of LovelV s Pond. His first prose work, Outre-Mer, was published in 1835. In 
a letter to Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, Eongfellow gives the following account of the 
origin of his masterpiece, Evangeline : " Some time before I wrote' Evangeline,' 
Hawthorne and Sumner were dining with me, and I think there must have been 
others present. After dinner, Hawthorne told us that he had lately become 
interested in the exile of the Acadians. It excited his imagination. He fancied 
two lovers, widely separated and wandering for years, meeting only to die, and 
wished to make a novel of it. He, however, thought the subject too difficult, and 
fancied he would have to give it up I waited a while, heard nothing more about 
the novel, and finally asked Hawthorne if he were willing that I should make 
the story the subject of a poem. He consented, and was one of the first to con- 
gratulate me on its popularity." He was married to Miss Appleton in 1843. He 



48 AMERICAN AUTHORS 



had a summer home at Nahant on the sea coast. Longfellow had five children, 
three girls and two boys, besides one child that died in infancy. Longfellow 
was a member of the famous Saturday Club, which met on the last Saturday of 
each month at Parker's, on School Street. He made his last trip to Europe in 
1868, accompanied by his children. Received the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford 
and Cambridge. Longfellow's seventy-fifth birthday, February 27, 1882, was cele- 
brated in many of the public schools in all parts of the United States, by recita- 
tions from his writings. See Whittier's poem, The Poet and the Children. Long- 
fellow's last poem, The Bells of San Bias, was finished March 15, 1882, and he died 
at his Cambridge home March 24,1882. On the 26th. funeral services were con- 
ducted by his brother, Samuel Longfellow. Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Whittier 
and many other noted persons were present. After the burial in Mt. Auburn, 
memorial services were held in Appleton Chapel. The bust of Longfellow in the 
Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, was unveiled at midday, Saturday, March 2 t 
1884. " It stands on a bracket near the tomb of Chaucer, and between the memo- 
rials to Cowley and Dryden." 

Principal Writings.— Poems (many editions). Cambridge edition 
is the best. Prose works: Outre-Mer, 1835; Hyperion, 1839; Kava- 
nagh, 1849. The Poets and Poetry of Europe (edited), 1845; The 
Waif: a Collection of Poems (edited), 1845; Poems of Places, 31 
vols, (edited), 1876-1879; Dante's Divina Commedia (translated), 
1867-1870. For a complete list of Longfellow's works, with many 
valuable notes as to their publication, see the Appendix in Final 
Memorials. Complete edition of Longfellow's works is published 
by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (11 vols., $ 16.50). Cambridge edition 
of poems, complete in one volume ($2). 

Selections for Memorizing. 

Day, panting with heat, and laden with a thousand cares, toils 
onward like a beast of burden ; but Night, calm, silent, holy Night, 
is a ministering angel that cools with its dewy breath the toil-heated 
brow ; and, like the Roman sisterhood, stoops down to bathe the pil- 
grim's feet. — Outre -Mer. 

O, there is something sublime in calm endurance, something 
sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffering without complain- 
ing, which makes disappointment oftentimes better than success ! 

Hyperion. 
What I most prize in woman 

Is her affections, not her intellect! 

The intellect is finite ; but the affections 

Are infinite, and cannot be exhausted. 

The Spanish Student. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 49 

O fear not in a world like this, 

And thou shalt know erelong, 
Know how sublime a thing it is 

To suffer and be strong.— The Light of Stars. 

How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams 
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams! 
Book of Beginnings, Story without End, 
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend! 

Morituri Salutamus. 

Find the following quotations in Longfellow's writ- 
ings: 

1. The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. 

2. O sleep, sweet sleep ! 
Whatever form thou takest, thou art fair, 
Holding unto our lips thy goblet filled 
Out of Oblivion's well, a healing draught ! 

3. Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, 
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget - me - nots of the 

angels. 

4. The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, 
And all the sweet serenity of books. 

5. For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature is 

noble, 
Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level. 

6. Over wide and rushing rivers 
In his arms he bore the maiden. 

Literary Gleaning.— What do Lowell, Curtis, and the Ency- 
clopedia Britannica say of Longfellow and his writings ? Name 
some of Longfellow's best poems and quote favorite stanzas. Which 
of his poems do you like best? Tell of his birthplace and read his 
poem, My Lost Youth. Tell about his tours in foreign lands, 
" Craigie House," and his friends. Read his poems, The Old Clock 
on the Stairs and Three Friends of Mine. Tell about Bowdoin and 
Morituri Salutamus. Tell about the "spreading chestnut- tree," 
the children and the " arm-chair." Tell about Hawthorne and 
Evangeline. Have you read Hyperion? Do you own a copy of 
Longfellow's poems (complete), read your favorite poems often* 
mark and commit to memory the finest stanzas ? 




OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



(1809-1894 



Holmes, the most cultivated wit, if not the chief humorist, America has 
ever produced.— Westminster Review. 

Iyong may he live to make broader the face of our care -ridden generation, 
and to realize for himself the truth of the wise man's declaration, that " a merry 
heart is a continual feast."— John G. Whittier. 

Holmes, among our poets, is another original writer, but his prose is a 
setting of brilliants of a different kind; his shrewd sayings are bright with 
native metaphor ; he is a proverb- maker, some of whose words are not without 
wings — E. C. Stedman. 

Who of all our authors has prepared an intellectual 
and spiritual feast of such variety of wholesome food and 
pure enjoyment, with something to delight and satisfy all 
conditions of humanity, as our genial Autocrat, Oliver 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 51 

Wendell Holmes? Besides his frolicsome poems, such as 
My Aunt, The September Gale, The Comet, The Height of 
the Ridiculous, and many others, we have Old Ironsides for 
patriotic eloquence, The Yankee Girls for national pride 
and love of home, The Last Leaf, that rare poem, in which 
humor and pathos are so beautifully blended, and yet seem 
almost to jostle each other; The Deacon s Masterpiece and 
Parson Tur ell's Legacy for sheer humor ; the class -poems, 
Bill and Joe, The Boys, The Old Man Dreams, and many 
others for combined humor and pathos ; The Meeting of 
the Dryads, almost as graceful as Tennyson's The Talking 
Oak, Iris, Avis, The Voiceless, The Silent Melody, and 
Under the Violets for tenderness and charity ; and, best of 
all, The Promise, The Living Temple, and The Chambered 
Nautilus for poetic beauty and lofty religious sentiment. 
The following lines from the poem entitled Poetry vies 
with Goldsmith for smoothness and tender beauty: 

" Home of our childhood ! how affection clings 
And hovers round thee with her seraph wings! 
Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown, 
Than fairest summits which the cedars crown ! 
Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze 
Than all Arabia breathes along the seas ! 
The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh, 
For the heart's temple is its own blue sky!" 

For wit and wisdom with frequent touches of deep 
tenderness and rare beauty what can be more pleasing and 
enriching than that unforgetable trinity called ' ' The 
Breakfast-table Series, comprising The Autocrat, The Pro- 
fessor, and The Poet? In The Autocrat we find many such 
rich gems as the following : ' ' Talking is like playing on 
the harp ; there is as much in laying the hand on the strings 
to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out the 
music." "People that make puns are like wanton boys 



52 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse them- 
selves and other children, but their little trick may upset a 
freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered wit- 
ticism." ' ' Beware of rash criticism ; the rough and stringent 
fruit you condemn may be an autumn or winter pear, and 
that which you picked up beneath the same bough in August 
may have been only its worm-eaten windfall." And the 
following so full of deep suggestiveness to thoughtful and 
earnest young people : * "I think you will find this true, 
that, before any vice can fasten on a man, body, mind, or 
moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses and fungi 
gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious 
parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that 
which is already enfeebled." "When the wandering 
demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift, —no steady 
wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course, — 
he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for 
the maelstrom." In The Professor we are told: "Truth 
is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; 
nay, you may kick it about all day, like a foot-ball, and it 
will be round and full at evening." In The Poet the soul- 
less fact-collector is described as a one-story man : ' ' One- 
story intellects, two-story intellects, three-story intellects 
with skylights. All fact-collectors, who have no aim 
beyond their facts are one-story men. Two-story men 
compare, reason, generalize, using the labors of the fact- 
collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealize, 



*A young man, ambitious for success, wrote to Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
asking three questions. The reply was : 

" 1. The three best books ? The Bible, Shakespeare's plays, and a good 
dictionary, say Worcester or Webster. 

"2. To attain 'real success?' Real work; concentration on some useful 
calling adapted to his abilities. 

"3. Shall he smoke? Certainly not. It is liable to injure the sight, to 
render the nerves unsteady, to enfeeble the will, and enslave the nature to an in- 
jurious habit likely to stand in the way of duty to be performed." 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 53 

imagine, predict; their best illumination comes from above, 
through the skylight." 

In spite of their power and originality, Elsie Venner 
and The Guardian Angel are not successful works of fic- 
tion, as they lack sustained interest. Dr. Holmes has done 
his best novel -writing in his books which are not novels. 
Where do we find anything of finer artistic touch or 
greater delicacy than the sketch of " Iris" in The Profes- 
sor or that of the "Schoolmistress" in The Autocrat! 
With what skill and pathetic tenderness has he painted the 
scene at the death -bed of the little deformed man in whom 
Iris with her true womanly sympathy has become so deeply 
interested ! The divinity student speaks to the dying man 
concerning bis sins, and "calls forth a last brilliant tirade 
from the little man, full of eloquence and pathos:" "I 
have learned to accept meekly what has been allotted to 
me, but I cannot honestly say that I think my sin has been 
greater than my suffering. I bear the ignorance and the 
evil-doing of whole generations in my single person. I 
never drew a breath of air nor took a step that was not a 
punishment for another's fault. I may have had many 
wrong thoughts, but I cannot have done many wrong 
deeds, — for my cage has been a narrow one, and I have 
paced it alone. I have looked through the bars and seen 
the great world of men busy and happy, but I had no part 
in their doings. I have known what it was to dream of 
the great passions ; but since my mother kissed me before 
she died, no woman's lips have pressed my cheek, — nor ever 
will. The young girl's eyes glittered with a sudden film, 
and almost without a thought, but with a warm human in- 
stinct that rushed up into her face with her heart's blood, 
she bent over and kissed him. It was the sacrament that 
washed out the memory of long years of bitterness, and I 
should hold it an unworthy thought to defend her." 



54 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Dr. Holmes is equally felicitous in The Autocrat as he 
gives those occasional glimpses of that noble type of sensi- 
ble womanhood, the schoolmistress, and in the graceful 
strokes of his brush as he puts her on canvas. Here are 
two artistic touches, describing her after those delightful 
morning walks : ' ' The schoolmistress came down with a 
rose in her hair, — a fresh June rose. She has been walking 
early; she has brought back two others, — one on each 
cheek." — "Two pleasing dimples, the places for which were 
just marked when she came, played, shadowy, in her fresh- 
ening cheeks when she smiled and nodded good-morning 
to me from the school-house steps." In what he speaks 
of as "my last walk with the schoolmistress," with what 
delicacy and charm he describes what the reader is 
expecting as the outcome of their many walks together! 
The place is historic Boston Common, with its many 
delightful paths — the one spoken of extending the whole 
length of the Common. "We called it the long path, and 

were fond of it," he says "No, no, she 

answered, softly, — I will walk the long path with you! 

The old gentleman who sits opposite met us walk- 
ing, arm in arm, about the middle of the long path, and 
said, very charmingly, — ' Good morning, my dears! ' " 



Long may he live to sing for us 
His sweetest songs at evening time, 

And, like his Chambered Nautilus, 
To holier heights of beauty climb! 

Whittier : Our Autocrat. 

In an old-fashioned gambrel- roofed house in classic 
Cambridge, Mass., under the very shadow of the buildings 
of Harvard College and only a short distance from the his- 
toric elm under which Washington took command of the 
American army, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born August 
29, 1809. His father, the Rev. Abiel Holmes, was a typical 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



55 



New England minister of that day, a man of culture and 
deep religious convictions. His mother, Sarah Wendell, 
was the daughter of an eminent lawyer, the Hon. Oliver 
Wendell, a descendant of a Dutch family which moved 
from the banks of the Hudson to Boston in the eighteenth 
century. Such a home with its trees and garden and its 




DR. HOLMES S BIRTHPLACE,- 1 CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

classic and historic associations, was full of stimulating and 
ennobling influences upon susceptible childhood. A large 
room with shelves of choice books on all sides, called the 
study, was a place of special attraction to a bright boy, and 
here the future Autocrat spent many delightful hours 
gathering the rich treasures hidden in books, and here he 
early learned to love the select companionship of philoso- 



*See The Autocrat, p. 91, The Professor, p. 188, The Poet, p. 10-32. 



56 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

phers, poets, and sages. One can readily understand why 
our author never ceased to love the old home. When he 
had become famous, he returned to it frequently, and 
finally fitted up as a writing -room the old parlor looking 
out on the garden, and spent many happy hours in this 
room or under the old trees. In his very last years after 
the old house had been torn down to make room for another 
building for Harvard University, he delighted to talk about 
the old Cambridge home and of his happy childhood there. 

After a thorough preparation in private schools in the 
neighborhood and in Phillips Academy, Andover, he en- 
tered Harvard College and graduated in the famous class 
of '29, numbering among his classmates S. F. Smith, author 
of " America," James Freeman Clarke, William H. Chan- 
ning, and many others whose names are not unknown to 
fame. After studying both law and medicine at Harvard, 
he continued his medical studies in Paris and Edinburgh, 
spent about two years as Professor of Anatomy and Physi- 
ology in Dartmouth College, then returned to Boston to 
devote his life to the practice of medicine. In 1847 he be- 
came Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Harvard 
Medical College, a position which he held with distinguished 
honor for thirty-five years. 

Holmes was the poet of the class of '29, and for some 

time after leaving college continued to write humorous 

poems, even after he had written in The Height of the 

Ridiculous : 

" Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 
I watched that wretched man, 
And since, I never dare to write 
As funny as I can." 

In a letter to the school children of Cincinnati, O., on 
their celebration of his seventy -first year, he says in part: 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 57 

" After all it sometimes happens that youthful readers find a 
certain pleasure in writings which their authors find themselves 
to have outgrown, and shake their heads over as if they ought to 
have written like old men when they were boys. So, if any of you 
can laugh over any of my early verses, unbutton your little jackets 
and indulge in that pleasing convulsion to your heart's content. 
But I sincerely hope that you will find something better in my 
pages, and if you will remember me by ' The Chambered Nautilus,' 
or ' The Promise,' or ' The Living Temple,' your memories will be 
a monument I shall think more of than any of bronze or marble." 

In 1840 Dr. Holmes married Amelia Lee Jackson, 
daughter of Judge Jackson of the Massachusetts Supreme 
Court. She was a true companion, merging her life into 
that of her distinguished husband, guarding him from 
interruptions and cheering him in his. noble work. They 
lived for more than twenty years in one house, No. 8 Mont- 
gomery Place. Of this home he says in The Professor at 
the Breakfast - Table : ''When he entered that door two 
shadows glided over the threshold; five lingered in the 
doorway when he passed through it for the last time, — and 
one of the shadows was claimed by its owner to be longer 

than his own Peace be to that house forever, 

for the many pleasant years he passed there." In the 
Autocrat, the landlady gives, some of the doctor's habits of 
life as well as his experiences as a lecturer: "He was a 
man who loved to stick around home, as much as any cat 
you ever see in your life. He used to say he'd as lief have 
a tooth pulled as to go anywheres. Always got sick, he 
said, when he went away, and never sick when he didn't. 
Pretty nigh killed himself goin' about lecturin' two or three 
winters; talking in cold country lyceums; as he used to say, 
goin' home to cold parlors and bein' treated to cold apples 
and cold water, and then goin' up into a cold bed in a cold 
chamber, and comin' home next mornin' with a cold in his 
head as bad as a horse distemper." 



58 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Mrs. Fields writes : " Any record of Dr. Holmes's life 
would be imperfect which contained no mention of the pride 
and pleasure he felt in the Saturday Club.* Throughout 
the forty years of its prime he was not only the most bril- 
liant talker of that distinguished company, but he was also 
the most faithful attendant. He was seldom absent from 
the monthly dinners either in summer or winter, and he 
lived to find himself at the head of the table where Agassiz, 
Longfellow, Emerson, and Lowell in turn preceded him. 
Could a shorthand-writer have been secretly present at those 
dinners, what a delightful book of wise talk and witty say- 
ings would now lie before us!" In a letter to James T. 
Fields, Holmes writes: "We had a grand club last Satur- 
day. Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Adams, and Tom 
Appleton (just home a few weeks ago), Norton (who has 
been sick a good while), were there, and lots of others and 
Lord Houghton as a guest. You ought to have been there; 
it was the best club for a long time." 

The great English preacher, W. F. Robertson, once 
said: "There are two rocks on which a human soul may 
be wrecked — God and the opposite sex." If we know a 



-During its first decade the Saturday Club brought together, as members 
or as visitors, many distinguished persons. At one end of the table sat Long- 
fellow, florid, quiet, benignant, soft-voiced, a most agreeable rather than a bril- 
liant talker, but a man upon whom it was always pleasant to look, — whose 
silence was better than many another man's conversation. At the other end 
of the table sat Agassiz, robust, sanguine, animated, full of talk, boy-like in his 
laughter. The stranger who should have asked who were the men ranged along 
the sides of the table would have heard in answer the names of Hawthorne, 
Motley, Dana, Lowell, Whipple, Peirce, the distinguished mathematician, Judge 
Hoar, eminent at the bar and in the cabinet, Dwight, the leading musical critic 
of Boston for a whole generation, Sumner, the academic champion of freedom, 
Andrew, " the great War Governor " of Massachusetts, Dr. Howe, the philanthro- 
pist, William Hunt, the painter, with others not unworthy of such company. 
And with these, generally near the Longfellow end of the table, sat Emerson> 
talking in low tones and carefully measured utterances to his neighbor, or 
listening and recording any stray word worth remembering on his mental 
phonograph. — O. W. Holmes in Life of Emerson. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 59 

man's general tone and thought concerning religion and 
how he thinks and speaks of women, we know the char- 
acter of the man. Dr. Holmes was a reverent believer in 
God, and his admiration and reverence for women and his 
faith in them was almost boundless. In speaking or writ- 
ing of them, he was "always respectful, always generous, 
sometimes a little sly, but never undignified." He says: 

' ' There are at least three saints among the women to 
one among the men." 

' ' I would have a woman as true as Death. At the first 
real lie which works from the heart outward, she should be 
tenderly chloroformed into a better world, where she can 
have an angel for a governess, and feed on strange fruits 
which shall make her all over again, even to her bones and 
marrow." 

"The brain women never interest us like the heart 
women: white roses please less than red." 

"God bless all good women! To their soft hands and 
pitying hearts we must all come at last!" 

In his lecture on Holmes, the noted English writer, H. 
R. Haw T eis, says: "As I look back on this rapid mind- 
sketch of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the nature of his ideals, 
the practical character of his religion; his large-hearted 
sympathy with men, women, and children, I can only say, 
' Heaven send us on this side of the Atlantic a teacher so 
wise and generous, so witty, so tender, and so true!'" 
Concerning the last years of Dr. Holmes's beautiful life, 
Mrs. Fields writes: "For many years it seemed that time 
stood still with the Autocrat. His happy home and his 
cheerful temper appeared to stay the hand of the destroyer. 
At last a long illness fell upon his wife; and after her 
death, when his only daughter, who had gone to keep her 
father's house, was suddenly taken from his side, the 



60 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

shadows of age gathered about him ; then we learned that 
he was indeed an old man." 

On a sweet autumn day, Sunday, October 7, 1894, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, the beloved teacher, the genial, 
wholesome writer, the true-hearted, sympathetic friend, 
passed from this lowly earth to his "more stately man- 
sions;" but he will live on in the lives he made richer and 
truer, in his words of wit and wisdom, and in his immortal 
songs. 

The hour draws near, howe'er delayed and late, 

When at the Eternal Gate 
We leave the words and works we call our own, 

And lift void hands alone 

For love to fill. Our nakedness of soul 

Brings to that Gate no toll ; 
Giftless we come to Him, who all things gives, 

And live because He lives. 

J. G. Whittier : To Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



Character and Criticism. — It was this sensitiveness, perhaps, that 
made his greatest charm — a power of sympathy which led him to 
understand what his companion would say if he should speak, and 
made it possible for him to talk in a measure for others as well as to 
express himself. Nothing, surely, could be more unusual and beau- 
tiful than such a gift, nor any more purely his own. ... Of 
course, conversation of this kind is an outgrowth of character. His 
reverence was one source of its inspiration, and a desire to do well 
everything which he undertook. He was a faithful friend and a 
keen appreciator, and he disliked to hear depreciation of others. 
His character was clear-cut and defined, like his small, erect figure; 
perfect of its kind, and possessed of great innate dignity, which was 
veiled only by delightful, incomparable gifts and charms. — Mrs. 
Annie Fiei/ds. 

Poet, essayist, novelist, humorist, scientist, ripe scholar, and 
wise philosopher, if Dr. Holmes does not at the present time hold in 
popular estimation the first place in American literature, his rare 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES • 61 

versatility is the cause. . . . His varied qualities would suffice for 
the mental furnishing of half dozen literary specialists. To those 
who have enjoyed the privilege of his intimate acquaintance, the 
man himself is more than the author. His genial nature, entire 
freedom from jealousy or envy, quick tenderness, large charity, 
hatred of sham, pretense, and unreality, and his reverent sense of the 
eternal and the permanent, have secured for him something more 
and dearer than literary renown — the love of all who know him. 

J. G. Whittier, 

A Group of Dr. Holmes's Friends.— Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, 
Whittier, Lowell, Agassiz, Sumner, Phillips, Mr. and Mrs. James T. 
Fields, Julia Ward Howe, Judge Hoar, Bayard Taylor, W. D. Howells, 
E. E. Hale, and many others. Also his classmates, to whom he refers 
in his poem, The Boys, Francis Thomas, George T. Bigelow, F. B. 
Crowninshield, G. W. Richardson, George T. Davis, James Freeman 
Clarke, Benjamin Peirce, B. R. Curtis, and S. F. Smith. 

References. — Whittier's three poems, Our Autocrat, O. W. 
Holmes on His Eightieth Birthday, and To Oliver Wendell 
Holmes; Life of Holmes, by W. Sloane Kennedy; Home Life of 
Great Authors, by Mrs. Griswold ; Poets of America, by E. C. Sted- 
man ; Homes of American Authors, by G. W. Curtis ; Poets' 1 Homes, 
by R. H. Stoddard ; American Humorists, by R. H. Haweis ; O. W. 
Holmes, by E. C. Stedman, The Century Magazine, February, 1885 ; 
Cambridge on the Charles, by C. F. Richardson; Harper's Magazine, 
January, 1876 ; Oliver Wendell Holmes, by F„ H. Underwood, Scrib- 
ner's Magazine, May, 1879 ; Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, by John T. Morse, Jr.; The Holmes Breakfast, Atlantic 
Monthly (supplement), February, 1880; Mirth and Medicine, by J. 
G. Whittier; LilteWs Living Age, March 17, 1849; Pall Mall 
Gazette, November, 1885 ; Oliver Wendell Holmes, by Annie Fields, 
Century Magazine, February, 1895. 

Additional Facts.— Holmes's cousin Wendell Phillips, and Charles Sumner 
were in college with him, but in lower classes. The old home in which Dr. 
Holmes was born was called " The Hastings House." It was the headquarters of 
Gen. Artemas Ward and of the Committee of Safety just before the Revolution. 
It was torn down in 1884. Holmes wrote Old Ironsides at his birthplace when 
he was only nineteen. The original class of '29 numbered sixty. At the time 
of Dr. Holmes's funeral only four were living, among them Dr. S. F. Smith 
author of " America,' ' who has since died ( November 16, 1895 ) . When the Atlantic 



62 AMERICAN AUTHORS 



Monthly was established in 1857, I^owell became editor-in-ehief on the condition 
that Holmes should be a regular contributor. Holmes suggested the name The 
Atlantic Monthly. One of Holmes's later poems, The Iron Gate, is ranked by 
some with Bryant's Flood of Years and L,ongfellow's Morituri Salutamus. After 
his marriage Dr. Holmes lived more than twenty years at No. 8 Montgomery 
Place, having a summer home at Pittsfield, Mass., the latter part of this time. 
He then lived many years at No. 21 Charles Street and the last ten years of his life at 
296 Beacon Street, spending the summer months mostly with his only daughter, 
Mrs. John T. Sargent, at her home, Beverly Farms. Three children were born to 
Dr. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Amelia Jackson, and Edward. Dr. Holmes made a 
tour of England in 1886 accompanied by his daughter. In Our Hundred Days in 
Europe, he gives a charming account of this tour. The following description 
of the death of Dr. Holmes is given by Mrs. G. R. Alden ( Pansy) : " He was in 
his home at Beacon street, Boston, talking with his son, Judge Holmes. It had 
just been suggested that he would rest better in a certain old-fashioned chair 
which he liked, and his son had supported him to it. As he leaned against the 
head-rest he said: 'This is better, thank you.'" These were the last words 
of our genial Autocrat. Funeral services at his church home, King's Chapel, 
Wednesday, October 10. Edward Everett Hale delivered the funeral discourse. 
The body was borne to Mt. Auburn and laid to rest beside that of his beloved 
life companion. 

Principal Writings. — Poems (complete), Cambridge Edition 
($ 2 ) ; The Autocrat of the Breakfast -Table, 1857 ; The Professor at 
the Breakfast-Table, 1859; The Poet at the Breakfast -Table, I860; 
The New Portfolio, 1885 ; Our Hundred Days in Europe, 1887 ; and 
Over the Tea-Cups, 1890— serials in Atlantic Monthly ; the novels — 
Elsie Venner, 1861; The Guardian Angel, 1867; and A Mortal 
Antipathy, 1885 ; Sketches and Essays — Soundings from the Atlantic, 
1863, and Mechanism in Thoughts and Morals, 1871; Scientific 
Essays — Currents and Counter- Currents, 1861, and Border Lines of 
Knowledge, 1862; Biographies, Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, 
1878, and Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1884. Only complete and 
authorized edition of Dr. Holmes's works (13 vols., $19.50), pub. by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

Selections for Memorizing. 

Our brains are seventy - year clocks. The Angel of Life winds 
them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the 
hand of the Angel of the Resurrection. — The Autocrat. 

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another rnind 
than in the one where they sprang up. That which was a weed in 
one intelligence becomes a flower in the other. A flower, on the 
other hand, may dwindle down to a mere weed by the same change. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 63 

Healthy growths may become poisonous by falling upon the wrong 
mental soil, and what seemed a night - shade in one mind unfold as 
a morning - glory in the other. — The Poet. 

One is sometimes tempted to wish that the superlative could 
be abolished, or its use allowed only to old experts. What are men 
to do when they get to heaven, after having exhausted their vocabu- 
lary of admiration on earth? — Our Hundred Days in Europe. 

The grandest objects of sense and thought are common to all 
climates and civilizations. The sky, the woods, the waters, the 
storms, life, death, love, the hope and vision of eternity, — these are 
images that write themselves in poetry in every soul which has any- 
thing of the divine gift. — The Professor. 

If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, 

Through my dumb lips the heaven - sent message came ; 

If hand of mine another's task has lightened, 

It felt the guidance that it dares not claim. 

The Iron Gate. 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low -vaulted past! 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! 

The Chambered Nautilus. 
\ 

Find the following quotations in the writings of Dr. 

Holmes : 

1. So beautiful are the visions of bygone delight that one 
could hardly wish them to become real, lest they should lose 
their ineffable charm. 

2. Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while 
before they begin to decay. 

3. Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal 
marks of good - breeding. 

4. Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they 
are seasoned. 



64 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

5. And yet, when a strong brain is weighed with a true 
heart, it seems to me like balancing a bubble against a wedge of 
gold. 

6. A crank is a man who does his own thinking. 

There never was an idea started that woke men up out of their 
stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as a crank. 

7. Yes, I love the little globule where I have spent more 
than fourscore years, and I like to think that some of my thoughts 
and some of my emotions may live themselves over again when I 
am sleeping. 

8. Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers, 

Sits by the raked - up ashes of the past, 
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers 
That warm its creeping life - blood till the last. 

9. And silence, like a poultice, comes 

To heal the blows of sound. 

10. Alas for those that never sing, 

But die with all their music in them! 

11. Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe 

Have washed thy Master's feet ! 

12. Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! 
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May ! 

Literary Gleaning. — What does Dr. Holmes say about 
"talking"? about "truth"? about "puns"? about "vice"? about 
" intellects " ? What answers did he make to the young man's three 
questions? Tell about Dr. Holmes's birthplace and his different 
places of residence. W T hat does he say about the " Saturday Club ? " 
By which poems does he ask the school children to remember him ? 
What does he say about " lecturin' " ? Tell about the class of '29. 
Quote the stanza in Dr. Holmes's poem, The Boys, that refers to 
the author of "America". Quote what he says about "woman". 
What noted reformer was a cousin of Dr. Holmes? Tell about the 
Atlantic Monthly. Name Dr. Holmes's principal writings. Tell 
about the following characters in the writings of Dr. Holmes : Iris, 
the Schoolmistress, Number Five, Little Boston, Avis, Myrtle 
Hazard, the Koh-i-noor, John, Benjamin Franklin. 




JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

(1807-1892) 

The poet of New England. His genius drew its nourishment from her 
soil; his pages are the mirror of her outward nature, and the strong utterance 
of her inward life. — Francis Parkman. 

His poetry bursts from the soul with the fire and energy of an ancient 
prophet. His noble simplicity of character is the delight of all who know him. 

William Ellery Channing. 

His songs touched the hearts of his people. It was the generation that 
listened in childhood to the Voices of Freedom that fulfilled their prophecies. 

E. C. Stedman. 

The noted English critic, Principal Shairp, says : 
" The mission of the poet is to awaken men to the divine 
side of things ; to bear witness to the beauty that clothes 
the outer world, the nobility that lies hid, often obscured, 
in human souls; to call forth sympathy for neglected 



66 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

truths, for noble and oppressed persons, for down -trodden 
causes; and to make men feel that through all outward 
beauty and pure inward affection God himself is addressing 
them." How Godlike is the mission of the poet, and how 
truly has it been fulfilled by ' ' our bard and prophet best 
beloved," John Greenleaf Whittier! In The Tent on the 
Beach Whittier writes concerning the poet : 

" Beyond the poet's sweet dream lives 
The eternal epic of the man. 
He wisest is who only gives, 

True to himself, the best he can ; 
Who, drifting in the winds of praise, 
The inward monitor obeys; 
And, with the boldness that confesses fear, 
Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience steer." 

Whittier's poems have an ennobling and inspiring in- 
fluence on our lives beyond the power of the poet's art ; 
we feel that God is speaking to us through the unselfish 
and consecrated life of a fearless patriot and genuine 
Christian citizen — a man of clean hands and pure heart. 
Whittier is the high priest, Hebrew prophet, and sweet 
psalmist of American literature. His intense hatred of 
wrong and his supreme love of right, his stirring bugle - 
calls to duty and his unswerving loyalty to truth, appeal to 
our nobler nature like the Psalms of David or the sublime 
words of Isaiah ; and his sweet devotional poems breathe 
the spirit of the Great Teacher, whose biography is writ- 
ten in one sentence: "He went about doing good." 

Snow-Bound } that most charming picture of a New 
England country home — the poet's own childhood home, 
is drawn by a master hand, and is every whit as delightful 
as The Deserted Village or The Cotter's Saturday Night, 
with the added power and charm of the author's strong, 
pure life — a life that dignified home and exalted woman- 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 67 

hood. Maud Muller has the fragrance of new - mown hay, 
and we, too, hear "the little spring brook fall over the 
roadside, through the wall," and our hearts repeat the 
sweet, sad lines: 

" Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
Stretched away into stately halls; 



A manly form at her side she saw, 
And joy was duty and love was law." 

And where in all literature do we find anything sweeter 
or more beautiful than Memories, In School- Days, and My 
Playmate? The closing stanzas of My Playmate are un- 
surpassed : 

" O playmate in the golden time ! 
Our mossy seat is green, 
Its fringing violets blossom yet, 
The old trees o'er it lean. 

" The winds so sweet with birch and fern 
A sweeter memory blow; 
And there in spring the veeries sing 
The song of long ago. 

" And still the pines of Ramoth wood 
Are moaning like the sea,— L 
The moaning of the sea of change 
Between myself and thee ! " 

In one of his many tender letters to Whittier Dr. 
Holmes writes : ' ' Let me say to you unhesitatingly that 
you have written the most beautiful school - boy poem in 
the English language. I have just read it, as I was writing 
to you, and before I had got through ' In School- Days,' the 
tears were rolling out of my eyes." The Yankee Girl, 
Clerical Oppressors, A Sabbath Scene, The Eve of Election , 
The Prisoner for Debt, Barbara Frietchie, Ichabool, The 
Lost Occasion, Garrison, Sumner, Laus Deo, and many 



68 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

other poems, are full of the spirit of the true reformer — 
one who makes no compromise with wrong. In his poem, 
Sumner, he says of that noble citizen and pure unpurchas- 
able statesman : 

i " One language held his heart and lip, 

Straight onward to his goal he trod, 
And proved the highest statesmanship 
Obedience to the voice of God. 

" His state-craft was the Golden Rule, 
His right of vote a sacred trust ; 
Clear, over threat and ridicule, 
All heard his challenge: 'Is it just?'" 

We must not forget The Hero, The Sycamores, Gone y 
The Barefoot Boy, The Centennial Hymn, The Vow of 
Washington, At School- Close, Among the Hills, Amy 
Wentworth, Mary Garvin, Mabel Martin, Red Riding 
Hood; and his tributes to his friends, Our Autocrat, The 
Poet and the Children, Bayard Taylor, A Welcome to 
Lowell, The Singer ; and we can not forget his sweet 
religious poems, such as My Psalm, Our Master, My Soul 
and I, The Minister's Daughter, The Vision of Ec hard, The 
Eternal Goodness, The Answer, and At Last. My Psalm 
and The Eternal Goodness contain the essence of thousands 
of eloquent sermons. What a simple, childlike trust is 
expressed in the following stanzas of The Eternal Goodness : 

"And so beside the Silent Sea 
I wait the muffled oar; 
No harm from Him can come to me 
On ocean or on shore. 

"I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I can not drift 
Beyond his love and care." 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 69 

O thou, whose daily life anticipates 
The life to come, and in whose thought and word 
The spiritual world preponderates, 

Hermit of Amesbury ! thou too hast heard 
Voices and melodies from beyond the gates, 
And speakest only when thy soul is stirred! 

Longfellow : The Three Silences of Molinos. 

In the easterly part of Haverhill, Mass., in the house 
built by his first American ancestor more than two hundred 




WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE, HAVERHILL, MASS. 



years ago, John Greenleaf Whittier was born Dec. 17, 
1807, and here he spent his boyhood and early manhood. 
In his autobiography Whittier says : ' ' My father was a 
farmer in moderate circumstances — a man of good natural 
ability and sound judgment. . . . The farm was not a 
profitable one; it was burdened with debt, and we had no 
spare money ; but with strict economy we lived comfortably 
and respectably. Both my parents were members of the 
Society of Friends. I had a brother and two sisters. Our 



70 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

home was somewhat lonely, half hidden in oak woods, 
with no house in sight, and we had few companions of our 
age, and few occasions of recreation. Our school was only 
for twelve weeks in the year — in the depths of winter and 
a half a mile away." In his poem, Telling the Bees, he 
gives us glimpses of his childhood home : 

"Here is the place; right over the hill 
Runs the path I took; 
You can see the gap in the old wall still, 

And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook." 

And again in The Barefoot Boy : 

"Laughed the brook for my delight 
Through the day and through the night, 
Whispering at the garden wall, 
Talked with me from fall to fall; 



" Oh for festal dainties spread, 
I/ike my bowl of milk and bread ; 
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, 
On the door-stone, gray and rude!" 

In Snow - Bound the poet gives a delightful picture of 
his childhood home, and sketches the members of the fam- 
ily with exquisite skill: . 

" Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door, 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat. 



"What matter how the night behaved? 
What matter how the north-wind raved? 
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 71 

We can never forget the glimpses and outline sketches 
of the members of this Christian home, and Mr. Whittier's 
words in his defense of the Quakers come to mind : ' ' From 
the rise of the society to the present time the peace, 
purity, and peculiar sweetness of Quaker homes have 
been proverbial." After sketching each of the older 
members of the family, he writes most tenderly of 
Elizabeth, "youngest and dearest," who was his com- 
panion and inspiration through those dark and dreadful 
anti- slavery years, and who passed away a year before 
Snow -Bound was written: 

"As one who held herself a part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against the household bosom lean, 
Upon the motley-braided mat 
Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 

Now bathed in the unfading green 
And holy peace of Paradise-" 

The great English statesman, John Bright, says of the 
lines quoted and those that follow: " In the poem of Snow- 
Bound, there are lines on the death of the poet's sister 
which have nothing superior to them in beauty and pathos 
in our language. I have read them often with always in- 
creasing admiration." 

Whittier's biographer, Samuel T. Pickard, says of Eliza- 
beth : ! ' Eight years younger than himself, she was from 
childhood his special pet and favorite, and as she grew 
older, she responded to his love with all the wealth of her 
warm affections and keen appreciation of his gifts." T. 
W. Higginson writes of the pet and pride of the Whittier 
household : ' ' She was a woman never to be forgotten ; and 
no one can truly estimate the long celibate life of the poet 
without bearing in mind that he had for many years at his 



72 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

own fireside the concentrated wit and sympathy of all 
womankind in this one sister. 1 ' Mr. Pickard says of the 
mother: "The poet's mother, Abigail Whittier, was es- 
teemed by all who knew her as one of the loveliest and 
saintliest of women. She was a person of much native re- 
finement of feelings and manners, with a dignity of bearing 
and benignity of expression that impressed and charmed 
all who knew her. Her face was full and very fair, her 
eye dark and expressive. For fifty years she was the 
guide, counselor, and friend of her illustrious son, who re- 
paid her devotion with a love as deep and tender as her 
own." With such a mother and "the dear aunt" Mercy 
and such sisters as Mary and Elizabeth as companions, how 
fortunate, how rich was young Whittier! Memory recalls 
his beautiful tribute to Christian womanhood, in that sweet 
little poem, Gone : 

" As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed 
Eternal as the sky ; 
And like the brook's low song, her voice, — 
A sound which could not die. 

" The blessing of her quiet life 
Fell on us like the dew; 
And good thoughts where her footsteps pressed 
Like fairy blossoms grew." 

Ten years before his mother's death, Whittier wrote in 
a letter to a friend : ' ' Mother ! how much there is in that 
word! if there is one earthly blessing for which more than 
another I feel thankful, it is that she is still spared to me 
to whom I can apply that endearing name." 

It was also fortunate for this poet and reformer that the 
books of the Whittier household were of a strong relig- 
ious character, mostly Quaker journals whose authors were 
unconsciously saintly. Foremost among the books of this 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 73 

Christian home was the Bible which young Whittier loved, 
and learned by heart, and whose strong, sweet influence 
guided and inspired his life, and is never absent from his 
writings. 

When young Whittier was fourteen, his first teacher, 
Joshua Coffin, fresh from Dartmouth College, again taught 
their district school, and spent many evenings in the Whit- 
tier home. Besides telling stories of college life, he 
brought books of adventure and read to the family as they 
sat by the old fire-place. One evening he brought a copy 
of Burns's poems, explaining the Scotch dialect as he read. 
Whittier's biographer says : ' ' Greenleaf listened spellbound 
in his corner. A fire was that evening kindled upon an 
altar which grew not cold for seventy years." Noticing the 
deep interest of the boy, his teacher left the book with 
him. In his poem, Burns y that most tender and beautiful 
tribute ever paid to Scotland's best loved bard, Whittier 
tells of that evening in his childhood home: 

"New light on home -seen Nature beamed, 
New glory over Woman ; 
And daily life and duty seemed 
No longer poor and common. 



With clearer eyes I saw the worth 
Of life among the lowly; 

The Bible at his Cotter's hearth 
Had made my own more holy." 



Young Whittier began at once to try his own wings as 
a poet, and, after making many attempts, ventured to show 
some of his lines to his sister Mary, who was about two 
years older than the would-be poet. Thinking that her 
brother's poems were as good as those in the newspapers, 
Mary selected The Exile's Departure, and sent it without 
her brother's knowledge to young Garrison's paper, the 



74 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Free Press. One day while this lad of sixteen was 
helping mend a stone wall by the roadside, the postman 
rode by on horseback and tossed him the paper. Whittier 
says: "I took up the sheet and was surprised and over- 
joyed to see my lines in the ' Poet's Corner.' I stood gaz- 
ing at them in wonder, and my uncle had to call me several 
times to my work before I could recover myself." Soon 
after another poem, The Deity , was published in the Free 
Press, with the following eulogistic introduction by Mr. 
Garrison: "The author of the following graphic sketch, 
which would do credit to riper years, is a youth of only 
sixteen. . . . His poetry bears the stamp of true poetic 
genius, which, if carefully cultivated, will rank him among 
the bards of his country." Mr. Garrison was anxious to 
see the young poet of Haverhill, and drove out from New- 
buryport, a distance of fourteen miles. Mr. Pickard de- 
scribes this visit to the Whittier home : ' ' The editor was a 
neatly dressed, handsome, and affable young gentleman, 
and his coming to the farm-house, accompanied by a lady 
friend, caused quite a sensation. Whittier was at work in 
the field, clad with reference to comfort in a warm day, 
and was disposed to excuse himself, but his sister Mary 
persuaded him to make himself presentable and receive his 
city visitors. This was the beginning of the life -long ac- 
quaintance and friendship of these two remarkable men. 
. . . Garrison, with the social tact that distinguished him„ 
put the shy youth at his ease at once. He heartily com- 
mended his work, and assured him of his belief of his 
capacity for better things. He advised him to secure an 
education." Young Whittier spent two terms of six months 
each in Haverhill Academy, paying the expenses of the 
first term by making slippers, the second by teaching a 
country school in West Amesbury. With the advantages 
of the Academy and access to the best libraries of the 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 75 

village, he was rich in opportunities. His biographer says: 
" One can imagine the surprise and pleasure of such a 
mind as his when the great fields of literature, hitherto 
closed to him, were thrown open. He was in the prime of 
his young manhood when he took his first plunge into the 
glorious Shakespearean flood. While reveling in the poetry 
of the great masters, in the adventures of travelers, in the 
history of nations, and in the wit and satire of Sterne and 
Swift, he neither neglected his studies, nor omitted fre- 
quently to try his own wings in song." 

Thirty of the best years, of Whittier's life were given to 
the anti- slavery struggle. Of his services in this noble 
cause, Oliver Johnson says: " The Prophet Bard of Amer- 
ica, poet of freedom, humanity, and religion ; whose words 
of holy fire aroused the conscience of a guilty nation, and 
melted the fetters of the slaves." Whittier frequently 
refers to these years that tried men's souls. In the poem, 
To My Sister, he writes: 

"And, knowing how my life hath been 
A weary work of tongue and pen, 
A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men, 

Thou wilt not chide my turning 
To con, at times, an idle rhyme, 
To pluck a flower from childhood's clime, 
Or listen, at Life's noonday chime, 

For the sweet bells of Morning ! " 

In 1836 the Haverhill farm was sold, and the Whittier 
family, the poet, his mother, aunt Mercy, and Elizabeth, 
moved to Amesbury, eight miles down the Merrimac. The 
Whittier home at Amesbury is a plain, old-fashioned 
wooden house, with an upright and an ell, painted white, 
surrounded by a picket fence ; and has a garden in the 
rear, in which are trees, fruits, and flowers. The poet's 
study, called the "garden room," is very cosy and home- 



76 



AMERICAN AUTHORS 



like, with its Franklin stove making an open wood fire in 
the winter, on the right of which are shelves containing 
Mr. Whittier's favorite books ; on the left stands his writ- 
ing desk; sofa and easy-chairs have an inviting look, and 
the table and walls are covered with precious souvenirs, 
among which are a water color picture of the Haverhill 
home, and fringed gentians painted by Lucy Larcom. One 




WHITTIER'S HOME, AMESBURY, MASS. 

stands reverently in this sacred room, where Snow- Bound 
and many other poems we love were written; where the 
" Hermit of Amesbury " welcomed so many illustrious men 
and women— Garrison, Phillips, Sumner, Beecher, Lucretia 
Mott, Mrs. Childs, Lowell, Bayard Taylor, J. T. Fields, 
Mrs. Fields, Matthew Arnold, " Grace Greenwood," "Gail 
Hamilton," Celia Thaxter, Lucy Larcom, and many others, 
not forgetting the romantic pilgrimage of Alice and Phoebe 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 77 

Cary, of which Mr. Whittier writes so tenderly in his 
poem, The Singer: 

"Years since (but names to me before), 
Two sisters sought at eve my door; 
Two song-birds wandering from their nest, 
A gray old farm-house in the West." 

To a correspondent who expressed compassion for Mr. 
Whittier in his loneliness, and asked why he never mar- 
ried, he replied: "Circumstances — the care of an aged 
mother, and the duty owed to a sister in delicate health for 
many years — must be my excuse for living the lonely life 
which has called out thy pity. . . . My life has been on 
the whole quite as happy as I deserved, or had a right to 
expect. I know there has something very sweet and beau- 
tiful been missed, but I have no reason to complain. I 
have learned, at least, to look into happiness through the 
eyes of others, and to thank God for the happy unions and 
holy firesides I have known." When told by a friend that 
Memories was her favorite poem , he replied : "I love it 
too; but hardly knew whether to publish it, it was so per- 
sonal and near my heart." As we read the romance of his 
life told so tenderly in this exquisite poem, we understand 
how the poet could say : "I know there has something 
very sweet and beautiful been missed." 

" I hear again thy low replies, 

I feel thy arm within my own, 
And timidly again uprise 
The fringed lids of hazel eyes, 

With soft brown tresses overblown. 
Ah ! memories of sweet summer eves, 

Of moonlit wave and willow}' way, 
Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves, 

And smiles and tones more dear than they!" 



78 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

During the last sixteen years of Mr. Whittier's life a 
part of each year was spent with his cousins, the two Miss 
Johnsons, and their sister, Mrs. Woodman, at their delight- 
ful country home, Oak Knoll, Danvers, Mass. His eighty- 
fourth and last birthday was celebrated at the home of his 
cousin, Joseph Cartland of Newburyport. "Sixty mem- 
bers of the Whittier Club of Haverhill, his native town, 
called in the morning, bringing with their congratu- 
lations eighty-four roses encircled with a scarf, upon the 
ends of which were etchings of Whittier's birthplace and 
the old school-house of his boyhood." Besides the large 
number of friends who called to see him, many tender mes- 
sages came from all over the country. Phillips Brooks 
sent the following very tender and beautiful greeting : "I 
have no right, save that which love and gratitude and rev- 
erence may give, to say how devoutly I thank God that 
you have lived, that you are living, and that you will 
always live." Whittier's dear friend, Dr. O. W. Holmes, 
wrote in part: "A life so well filled as yours has been 
cannot be too long for your fellow-men. In their affec- 
tions you are secure, whether you are with them here or 
near them in some higher life than theirs." 

The close of Whittier's earthly life was as peaceful 
and beautiful as his old age had been gracious and sweet. 
It was at the early dawn of a beautiful autumn day, just 
as the sun was beginning to shed his glory over the moun- 
tains and the sea; "it was at the close of a day equally 
perfect that his casket was lowered to a bed of roses in a 
grave lined with ferns and golden-rod." 

Best loved and saintliest of our singing train, 
Earth's noblest tributes to thy name belong. 

A lifelong record closed without a stain, 

A blameless memory shrined in deathless song. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 79 

Ivift from its quarried ledge a flawless stone; 

Smooth the green turf and bid the tablet rise, 
And on its snow-white surface carve alone 

These words, — he needs no more— HERE WHITTIER LIES. 
O. W. Holmes : In Memory of John Greenleaf Whittier. 

Character and Criticism. — It is a risk to meet a favorite author — 
he may overthrow the ideal one must have formed — but we had no 
disappointment when we saw Mr. Whittier. Those luminous eyes ! 
So direct, such unmixed a look of simple questioning inquiry, with 
no touch of self-consciousness, or offense given or taken, such lively 
refreshing absence of the usual conventional expressions toward a 
visitor, I had never seen except in very young children ; it was the 
naked truth, habitual, and above all small disguises. Those eyes 
told of one "who had kept innocency all his days." — JESSIE Benton 
Fremont. 

It is impossible to convey to those who never saw Mr. Whittier, 
the charm of his gift of story-telling ; the exactness and simplicity 
of his reminiscences were flavored by his poetic insight and dramatic 
representation. It was a wonderful thing to hear him rehearse in 
the twilight the scenes of his youth, and the figures that came and 
went in that small world ; the pathos and humor of his speech can 
never be exceeded. . . . His was the life of the poet first of all, and 
yet the tale of his sympathetic friendliness, and his generosity and 
care-taking for others, will never be fully told. His dark eyes had 
great powers of insight ; they could flash scorn as well as shine with 
the soft light of encouragement. — Annie Fields. 

While chanting in behalf of every patriotic or humane effort of 
his time, he has been the truest singer of our homestead and way- 
side life. . . . His traits moreover have begotten a sentiment of 
public affection, which, in its constant manifestations, is not to be 
overlooked in any judgment of his career. . . . Whittier's audience 
has been won by unaffected pictures of the scenes to which he was 
bred, by the purity of his nature, and even more by the earnestness 
audible in his songs. — E. C. Stedman. 

The speech of Webster or Sumner is heard by but few. How 
soon, after all, it is forgotten! But the musical arrow of the poet 
pierces the heart of the whole people. It stirs the blood. It dwells 
in the memory. It springs to the lips in the times of deepest 



80 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

emotion. The figure of the orator is forgotten when his own passes 
away. But Whittier sits, and for centuries will sit, by millions of 
American firesides. . . . The love of liberty will not die out in the 
land while the youth of America learn and love the verse of the poet 
who combines the lofty inspiration of David with the sweet sim- 
plicity of Burns. — Senator Geo. F. Hoar. 

References. — Holmes's poems, For Whittier 's Seventieth Birth- 
day \ To John Greenleaf Whittier on his Eightieth Birthday, and In 
Memory oj John Greenteaf Whittier ; Longfellow's poem, The 
Three Silences of Mo linos ; Bayard Taylor's poems, A Friend's 
Greeting and To John Greenleaf Whittier ; Phoebe Cary's poem, 
John Greenleaf Whittier ; J. G. Holland's poem, To Whittier on his 
Seventieth Birthday ; B. C. Stedman's poem, Ad Vigilem ; Lucy 
Larcom's poem, Withdrawal ; John Greenleaf Whittier, Life and 
Letters, by Samuel T. Pickard (2 vols. $3), H. M. & Co.; John Green- 
leaf Whittier, His Life, Genius, and Writings, by W. Sloaue Ken- 
nedy; Personal Recollections of John G. Whittier, by Mary B. 
Claflin ; Whittier, Notes of his Life and of his Friendships, by Mrs. 
James T. Fields; Poets of America, by E. C. Stedman ; Boyhood of 
Whittier, by W. H. Rideing, St. Nicholas, October, 1887; John 
Greenleaf Whittier, by R. H. Stoddard, Scribner's, August, 1879; 
The Quaker Poet, by Harriet Prescott Spofford, Harper's, January, 
1884 ; Home Life of Great Authors, by Mrs. H. T. Griswold ; Out- 
lines for the Study of Holmes, Bryant, and Whittier ( Leaflet) ; and 
Whittier Number of The Literary World, December. 1877. 

Additional Facts.— Mr. Whittier never crossed the ocean, but his sympathies 
were world-wide. He was the champion of every noble reform — Freedom of 
the Slave, Temperance, Equal Rights for Women, etc., and the true friend of all 
reformers. See such poems as Our Country, The Reformer, Sumner, etc. To 
Oliver Wendell Holmes is Whittier's last poem. Eydia G. Ayres, who died at 
fourteen, was the little girl immortalized in the poem, In School-Days. Phoebe 
Woodman, now married and living in Boston, is the " Red Riding-Hood " of his 
poem by that name. Ichabod and The Lost Occasion refer to Daniel Webster. 
James T. Fields and Bayard Taylor are the poet's companions in The Tent on the 
Beach. "The lady in the Tent was born of the poet's imagination," says Mrs. 
Fields. The Answer contains the essence of Whittier's religious ideas. When 
sold in 1836, the Haverhill farm contained one hundred and forty-eight acres. 
Soon after Mr. Whittier's death, it was purchased by the Hon. James H. Carleton, 
and transferred to a board of trustees composed of members of the Whittier Club 
of Haverhill. The home has been restored as nearly as possible as it was in the 
poet's childhood, and is open to visitors certain days of the week. The Ames- 
bury home, owned by Mr. Whittier's niece and occupied by Judge Cate, is kept 
as Mr. Whittier left it. Until her death in 1864, Elizabeth was the mistress of his 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 81 



home, then Mr. Whittier's niece," Lizzie," kept house for him until her marriage 
to Mr. Pickard in 1876. Mr. Whittier died September 7, 1892, at the home of his 
friend, Sarah A. Gove, " Elmfield,' ' Hampton Falls, N. H., seven miles from Ames- 
bury. Funeral services were held under the trees in the garden at the rear of 
the Amesbury home on the afternoon of Saturday, September 10th. Eulogies 
were delivered by E. C. Stedman and others. Among the pallbearers were 
Horace F- Scudder, Rev. Samuel May, F. C. Stedman, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
Ward, and Harriet Prescott Spofford. The body was borne to the cemetery a 
half mile away and laid to rest on the hill overlooking the valley of the Powow 
in which nestles the thriving little city of Amesbury, and close by is the beauti- 
ful Merrimac, the river he loved. Between Whittier's grave and that of his 
brother, who died in 1883, are the graves of his father, mother, uncle, aunt, and 
his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth — all the members of the family described in 
Snow-Bound. A simple slab of pure white marble stands at the head ofWhit- 
ier's grave ; on one side is engraved his name, date of birth and death, on the 
other the closing words of Dr. Holmes's beautiful tribute — "Here Whittier lies.'* 

Principal Writings. — Poems complete in one volume (Cambridge 
Edition, $2). Prose : Legends of New England in Prose and Verse y 
1831 ; Justice and Expediency, 1833 ; The Stranger in Lowell, 1845 ; 
Supernaturalism in New England, 1847 ; Leaves from Margaret 
Smith's Journal, 1849 ; Old Portraits and Modern Sketches, 1850; 
Literary Recreations and Miscellanies, 1854 ; Child Life in Poetry ; 
edited, 1870; Child Life in Prose, edited, 1874; Journal of John 
Woolman, edited, 1873. Also contributions to many papers, and edi- 
torial work. Only authorized edition of Whittier's works ( 7 vols., 
$10.50) pub. by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

Selections for Memorizing. 

The hills are dearest which our childish feet 
Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet 
Are ever those at which our young lips drank 
Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank. 

The Bridal of Pennacook. 

But life shall on and upward go ; 

Th' eternal step of Progress beats 
To that great anthem, calm and slow, 
Which God repeats. 

The Reformer. 

The riches of the Commonwealth 

Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health ; 

And more to her than gold or grain, 

The cunning hand and cultured brain. 

Our State. 



82 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Yet, in the maddening maze of things, 

And tossed by storm and flood, 
To one fixed trust my spirit clings ; 

I know that God is good! — The Eternal Goodness. 

The west-winds blow, and, singing low, 

I hear the glad streams run ; 
The windows of my soul I throw 

Wide open to the sun. — My Psalm. 

And when the world shall link your names 
With gracious lives and manners fine, 

The teacher shall assert her claims, 

And proudly whisper, " These were mine ! " 

At School-Close. 

Find the following quotations in Whittier's poems : 

1. Still memory to a gray-haired man 

That sweet child-face is showing. 

Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 

Have forty years been growing ! 

2. The tissue of the Life to be 

We weave with colors all our own, 
And in the field of Destiny 
We reap as we have sown. 

3. Give every child his right of school, 

Merge private greed in public good, 
And spare a treasury overfull 

The tax upon a poor man's food? 

4. Not lightly fall 
Beyond recall 

The written scrolls a breath can float; 

The crowning fact, 

The kingliest act 
Of Freedom is the freeman's vote ! 

5. And one in heart, as one in blood, 

Shall all her peoples be ; 
The hands of human brotherhood 
Are clasped beneath the sea. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 83 

6. Her step grew firmer on the hills 

That watch our homesteads over; 
On cheek and lip, from summer fields, 
She caught the bloom of clover. 

7. Keep in the little maiden's breast 
The pity which is now its guest ! 
L,et not her cultured years make less 
The childhood charm of tenderness. 

8. A seeming child in everything, 

Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms, 
As Nature wears the smile of Spring 
When sinking into Summer's arms. 

Literary Gleaning. — Tell what Parkman, Channing, Sted- 
man, Annie Fields, Mrs. Fremont, and Senator Hoar say of Whit- 
tier and his poems. Name his best poems and quote favorite 
stanzas. Tell about his childhood home, his first poem published 
in Garrison's paper, Garrison's visit to the Whittier home, Snow- 
Bound, his mother and sister Elizabeth. Read The Barefoot Boy. 
Tell about Whittier's Amesbury home and the noted persons who 
visited him there. Quote Whittier's lines about Sumner. Quote 
his lines about Alice and Phoebe Cary. Read Holmes's poems 
about Whittier. Read Whittier's last poem. Which of Whittier's 
poems refer to Webster? Tell about Whittier's last birthday. Do 
you own a copy of Whittier's po^ms? 




JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

(1819-1891) 

Lowell, in whom all the youthful fun and freshness of the nation seems 
typified.— Westminster Review. 

And if Lowell be not, first of all, an original genius, I know not where to 
look for one. . . . Give him a touch of Mother Earth, a breath of free air, one 
Bash of sunshine, and he is no longer a book-man and a brooder ; his blood runs 
riot with the spring; this inborn, poetic elasticity is the best gift of the gods. 
Faith and joy are ascensive forces of song. Lowell trusts in Nature and she 
gladdens him.— E. C. Stedman. 



With what wealth of thought, of character, of inspira- 
tion has humanity been enriched by the life and writings of 
our most variously gifted man of letters, James Russell 
Lowell! Poet, reformer, humorist, essayist, critic, orator, 
statesman, and distinguished citizen, his noble life shames 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 85 

us into higher thinking and truer living, and many of his 
poems thrill and inspire like bugle-calls to battle and strains 
of martial music: 

"He's true to God who's true to man; wherever wrong is done, 
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun, 
That wrong is also done to us ; and they are slaves most base, 
Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race." 1 

" They are slaves who fear to speak 
For the fallen and the weak; 
They are slaves who will not choose 
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 
Rather than in silence shrink 
From the truth they needs must think; 
They are slaves who dare not be 
In the right with two or three." 2 

" Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like 
A star new-born, that drops into its place, 
And which, once circling in its placid round, 
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake." 3 

" Be nobi,e ! and the nobleness that lies 
In other men, sleeping, but never dead, 
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own." 4 

Stanzas on Freedom, On the Caphire of Certain Fugi- 
tive Slaves near Washington, The Present Crisis, A Glance 
Behind the Curtain, To W. L. Garrison, Elegy on the 
Death of Dr. Channing , Commemoration Ode, and the three 
memorial poems, Concord, Under the Old Elm, and The 



1 On the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves. 2 Stanzas on Freedom. 3 A 
Glance Behind the Curtain. 4 Sonnet IV. 

If there be one thing- upon this earth that mankind love and admire better 
than another, it is a brave man — it is a man who dares to look the devil in the 
face and tell him he is a devil. — Garfield. 



86 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Fourth of July are full of pure, unselfish patriotism and 
loyalty to Truth and Right. Who can forget the tribute 
to Washington in Under the Old Elm : 

" O, man of silent mood, 
A stranger among strangers then, 
How art thou since renowned the Great, the Good, 
Familiar as the day in all the homes of men !" 

Or that matchless tribute to Lincoln in the Commemoration 
Ode, beginning: 

"Such was he, our Martyr-Chief." 

One cannot afford to miss the keen wit and rare humor 
of the Big low Papers or the beautiful sentiments, bright 
thoughts, and ennobling truths found in Lowell's prose 
works, and in the poems, The Cathedral, Columbus , Long- 
ing ', The Heritage, The Forlorn, A Legend of Britta?iy, 
An Incident in a Railroad Car, and many others. And 
where can we find more tender and beautiful tributes to 
noble womanhood than in the love-poems, My Love, Irene, 
and some of his sonnets ! Our deeper feelings will not let 
us forget those tender lyrics of the heart called forth by the 
death of loved ones, She Came and Went, The Change- 
ling, The First Snow-Fall, After the Burial, and The 
Dead House. 

Lowell's love of nature — the trees, the flowers, and 
birds, like his religious sentiment, was deep and genuine. 
He says : ' ' How I do love the earth ! I feel it thrill under 
my feet. I feel as if it were conscious of my love, as if 
something passed into my dancing blood from it!" His 



The code of society is stronger with most persons than that of Sinai, and 
many a man who would not scruple to thrust his fingers into his neighbor's 
pockets would forego green peas rather than use his knife as a shovel. 

I,owell: Essay on Pope. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 87 

love of nature seemed to grow deeper and stronger when 
old age had silvered his hair. A short time before his death 
he wrote to a friend: "I think Nature grows more and 
more beautiful and companionable as one grows older and 
the earth more motherly-tender to one who will ask to sleep 
in her lap so soon." How close we also come to Nature's 
heart, as we read his essay, My Garden Acquaintance , and 
the poems, A?i hidian- Summer Reverie, An hivitation, 
Pictures from Appledore, Al Fresco, the sonnet L ' 'Envoi ', 
Under the Willows, and that matchless poem, The Vision 
of Sir Launfal, in which the beauty of Nature and the 
more spiritual beauty of Religion seem to vie with each 
other in honor and praises to their Author: 

" 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 
'Tis only God may be had for the asking; 
No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

" And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers. 



" Everything is upward striving ; 
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,- 
'Tis the natural way of living." 



It is the virile grace of the Greeks, their sense of proportion, their distaste 
for the exaggerated, their exquisite propriety of phrase, which steadies the 
imagination without cramping it,— it is these that we should endeavor to 
assimilate without the loss of our own individuality.— Lowell : Essay on 
Swinbiime' s Tragedies. 



$8 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Silent are all the sounds of day; 

Nothing I hear but the chirp of the crickets, 
And the cry of the herons winging their way 

O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets. 

Longfellow : The Herons of Elmwood. 

In the ancestral home, Elmwood, Cambridge, Mass., 
James Russell Lowell was born on Washington's birthday, 
February 22, 1819. In Letters of James Russell Lowell, 
edited by his friend, Prof. C. E. Norton, is the following 
description of the poet's father and mother : "His father, 
the Reverend Charles Lowell, was a man of gracious char- 
acter and rare personal qualities. His presence was strik- 
ing and comely, and his looks and manners corresponded 
in their benignity with the sweetness and simplicity of his 
nature. Mrs. Lowell was of an old Orkney family and in 
her blood was a tincture of the romance of those solitary 
Northern isles. It was from her that her son believed him- 
self to have inherited his love of nature and his poetic 
temperament." Doubtless, from his mother he also in- 
herited his love of languages and literature, "that gift of 
tongues," so noticeable in the rugged beauty of his prose; 
for she was highly cultured for a woman of that day, a 
lover of music, and read foreign languages. 

Elmwood is only a short distance from the Longfellow 
home, and the ample grounds, which have been kept as 
nearly as possible in a state of nature, originally extended 
almost to the gate of Mt. Auburn cemetery. In the grass 
and trees of Elmwood the birds build their nests and sing 
their songs with perfect freedom. In his essay, My Garden 
Acquaintance, in which Mr. Lowell writes so charmingly 
of the birds of Elmwood, he closes with these words: "As 
for the birds, I do not believe there is one of them but 
does more good than harm ; and of how many featherless 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



89 



bipeds can this be said?" In a letter to a friend, Lowell 
gives the following description of the house in which he 
was born, spent most of his earthly life, and where he 
died: "It is a square house with four rooms on a floor, 
like some houses of the Georgian era I have seen in English 
provincial towns, only they are brick and this is wood. . . . 
It is very sunny, the sun rising so as to shine (at an acute 




angle, to be sure) through the northern windows, and go- 
ing round the other three sides in the course of the day. 
There is a pretty staircase with the quaint old twisted 
banisters — which they call balusters now, but mine are 
banisters. My library occupies two rooms opening into 
each other by- arches at the side of the ample chimneys. 



To have any chance of lasting, a book must satisfy, not merely some 
fleeting fancy of the day, but a constant longing and hunger of human 
nature. — Lowell: Essay on Carlyle. 



90 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

The trees I look out on are the earliest things I remember." 
He also speaks of his home in his essay, Cambridge Thirty 
Years Ago, and in his poems, An Indian- Summer Reverie, 
Under the Willows, and An Invitation. In the last he 
writes : 

" Kindlier to me the place of birth 

That first my tottering footsteps trod ; 

There may be fairer spots of earth, 

But all their glories are not worth 

The virtue of the native sod." 

At the age of eight or nine years, young Lowell began 
his school life as a day -scholar in the boarding-school of 
Mr. William Wells, close to Cambridge. An Englishman 
of good -breeding as well as good -learning, both as an in- 
structor and as a man Mr. Wells was a helpful teacher for 
this bright boy. After preparing for college at a classical 
school in Boston, he entered Harvard at the age of sixteen, 
and graduated in 1838, with W. W. Story, the sculptor and 
poet, as one of his classmates. Young Lowell was class- 
poet, but did not take high rank as a student. He was a 
"dreamer" and found mathematics dry and irksome, but 
delighted to roam in the fields of literature, and along it's 
running streams, or to commune with Nature, lying 
"under the willows," and watching the coming of June: 

" Long she lies in wait, 
Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, 
Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, 
With one great gush of blossoms storms the world. 



" Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one, 
The bobolink has come, and, like the soul 
Of the sweet season vocal in a bird, 
Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what 
Save June! Dear June! Now God be praised for June. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 91 

Having entered Harvard law school, he completed the 
course and received the degree in 1840. He opened an 
office in Boston, but soon discovered that the practice of 
law was not only uncongenial, but positively distasteful to 
one who had already felt the inspiration of the poet's power, 
and was longing 

" To write some earnest verse or line, 
Which, seeking not the praise of art, 
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine 
In the untutored heart." 1 

At the age of twenty-two, he issued his first volume 
of poems, inscribing it to "Una," who was no other than 
Miss Maria White of Watertown, near Cambridge, a young 
lady of poetic temperament, refined womanly instincts, and 
rare perfection of character, and herself a writer of sweet 
and tender verse. She was the inspiration of Mr. Lowell's 
life as well as some of his sweetest and most beautiful 
poems, such as Irene, My Love, and several sonnets. In 
Irene he writes: 

" Right from the hand of God her spirit came 
Unstained, and she hath ne'er forgotten whence 
It came, nor wandered far from thence, 
But laboreth to keep her still the same, 
Near to the place of birth, that she may not 
Soil her white raiment with an earthly spot." 

And in that exquisite poem, My Love : 

" Blessing she is : God made her so, 
And deeds of week-day holiness 
Fall from her noiseless as the snow, 
Nor hath she ever chanced to know 
That aught were easier than to bless." 



1 An Incident in a Railroad Car. 

The Anglo-Saxon race has accepted the primal curse as a blessing, has 
deified work, and would not have thanked Adam for abstaining from the apple. 

Lowell: A Moosehead Journal. 



92 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Besides her many accomplishments and the strength 
and beauty of character, which made her a most suitable 
companion for a poet, Mrs. Lowell was also in full sympa- 
thy with her husband in his anti- slavery sentiments, and 
was willing to share with him the ''hatred and abuse," the 
crown of thorns, which the leaders of unpopular reforms 
are wont to have pressed down on their brows — 

" Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched 
crust, 
Ere her cause bring fame and profit and 'tis prosperous to be 
just" 1 

The ease-loving, the dull of conscience, and the "It 
always has been and it always will be " men and women were 
numerous then as they are now, and Lowell exhibited gen- 
uine manhood and true courage in daring to praise Whit- 
tier, the then unpopular reformer and hated Quaker poet. 
In A Fable for C?'itics, he says: 

"All honor and praise to the right-hearted bard 
Who was true to The Voice when such service was hard, 
Who himself was so free he dared sing for the slave 
When to look but a protest in silence was brave ; 
All honor and praise to the women and men 
Who spoke out for the dumb and the down-trodden then ! " 

Lowell's patriotic and thrilling lines in The Present 
Crisis, Stanzas on Freedom, and many other poems, 
touched the noblest instincts of the human heart and 
quickened the conscience of the American people. In 
On the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves, we find these 
thrilling lines: 

" I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast 
Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest ; 
And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the tame, 
'Tis but my Bay-State dialect, — our fathers spake the same!" 

1 The Present Crisis. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 93 

And in his sonnet, D Envoi: 

"Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart, 
And his mere word makes despots tremble more 
Thau ever Brutus with his dagger could." 

Influential, indeed, was the eloquence of Garrison and 
Phillips and the patriotic poetry of Whittier and Lowell in 
convincing and stirring the more thoughtful and earnest- 
but it was Mrs. Stowe's pathetic story, Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
and Lowell's Yankee wit and wisdom in the inimitable Big- 
low Papers that not only captivated but captured both the 
classes and the masses. Of the Big low Papers, H. R. 
Haweis, the noted English critic, says: "Before the ' Big- 
lows,' few people in England read Mr. Lowell; since the 
'Biglows,' few people have ceased to read him. The plan 
of the 'Biglows' is laid out in Prose and Poetry. The 
most whimsical prefaces, avowedly from the pen of the 
Rev. Homer Wilbur, introduced the curious metrical exer- 
cises of Mr. Hosea Biglow and Mr. Birdofredum Sawin. 
. . . The poetical figures are Sawin and Biglow, but the 
whole show is animated by that great prose writer, the Rev. 
Homer Wilbur. He touches up their compositions, favors 
us with his own, and gives that variety of subject, together 
with a unity of purpose, to the 'Biglows' which is one of 
their greatest charms. Around the stormy topics of war, 
slavery, and politics, plays an incessant summer lightning 
of literary, antiquarian, and instructive social and domestic 
twitter." Mr. Lowell says: "I needed on occasion to 
rise above the level of mere patois, and for this purpose I 
conceived the Rev. Wilbur, who should express the more 
cautious element of the New England character and its 
pedantry, as Mr. Biglow should serve for its homely com- 
mon-sense vivified and heated by conscience. . . . Find- 
ing soon after that I needed some one as a mouthpiece 



94 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

of mere drollery, for I conceive that humor is never deliv- 
ered from moral conviction, I invented Mr. Sawin for the 
clown of my little puppet-show." To the editor of the 
Atlantic Monthly, Hosea Biglow writes: 

" You're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, 

Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, 
An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, 

I'd take an' citify my English. 
I ken write long-tailed, ef I please, — 

But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee; 
Then, 'fore I know it, my idees 

Run helter-skelter into Yankee." 

In 1847 the following lines were quoted in the House 
of Commons, and first drew the attention of England to 
Lowell's satire: 

" Parson Wilbur says he never heerd in his life 

Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, 
An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, 
To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee." 

Mr. Biglow's politician talks honestly: 

" Ez to my princerples, I glory 
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort; 
I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory, 
I'm jest a candidate, in short." 

And Mr. Sawin thinks: 

" A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, 
Ef he must hev beliefs, nut to b'lieve 'em tu hard." 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 95 

Mr. Biglow hears the pious editor of a time-serving 
newspaper sing: 

" I don't believe in princerple, 
But O, I du in interest." 

England gets many a hearty nudge like the following: 

" To move John you must make your fulcrum of solid beef 
and pudding; an abstract idea will do for Jonathan." 

The prose of the Biglow Papers abounds in sparkling 
gems of thought: 

" What a schoolhouse is the world, if our wits would only 
not play truant ! " 

" There seem now-a-days two sources of literary inspiration, 
— fullness of mind and emptiness of pocket." 

" It has not seldom occurred to me that Babel was the first 
Congress, the earliest mill erected for the manufacture of gabble," 

And what is more beautiful than the first stanza of 
The Courtin* : 

" God makes sech nights, all white an' still 
Fur'z you can look or listen, 
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, 
All silence an' all glisten." 

Beautiful children came to bless the Elmwood home. 
All but one died in infancy. The tender poems, She Came 
and Went, The Changeling, and The First Snow-Fall tell 
of their "first great sorrow", the death of little Blanche, 
their first-born. In The First Snow-Fail the sorrowing 
father writes: 

"i thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 
Where a little headstone stood; 
How the flakes were folding it gently, 
As did robins the babes in the wood." 



96 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

The death of little Rose called forth that deep and 
tender poem, After the Burial: 

" Communion in spirit ! Forgive me, 
But I, who am earthly and weak, 
Would give all my incomes from dreamland 
For a touch of her hand on my cheek." 

Delicate in health and by nature and cultivation deeply- 
sympathetic and sensitive, the loss of her children was a 
greater sorrow than Mrs. Lowell was able to bear. Hoping 
that a change of scene would help to banish' from her 
thought the two little mounds in "sweet Auburn", the 
Lowells crossed the ocean, visiting England, France, Switz- 
erland, and Italy. While in Rome the climax of their sor- 
row came in the death of little Walter, their only boy. 
Mrs. Lowell never recovered from this awful grief. They 
returned to Elm wood, but in a short time there was 
another mound on the hillside under the trees. Of her 
death Mr. Lowell wrote to a friend: " I understand now 
what is meant by ' the waters have gone over me '. Such 
a sorrow opens a door clear down into one's deepest nature 
that he had never suspected before." In that pathetic 
poem, The Dead House, he tells of the years of precious 
companionship and of his awful loneliness after her death : 

" To learn such a simple lesson, 
Need I go to Paris and Rome, 
That the many make the household, 
But only one the home? 

" 'T was a smile, 't was a garment's rustle, 
'T was nothing that I can phrase, 
But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious, 
And put on her looks and ways." 

After saying that he would close the shutters and burn 
the "dead house" were it his, he closes the poem: 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 97 

" For it died that autumn morning 
When she, its soul, was borne 
To lie all dark on the hillside 

That looks over woodland and corn." 

In 1854 Mr. Lowell was appointed to succeed Mr. 
Longfellow in the chair of belles-lettres in Harvard Uni- 
versity. After spending two years in special study in 
Europe, chiefly at Dresden, he returned to Cambridge and 
began the work for which he was admirably fitted both by 
nature and training. His lectures on Dante, Chaucer, 
Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and other great 
literary characters, delighted the cultivated audiences at 
Harvard, and continue to delight the lovers of literature 
who read Mr. Lowell's prose works. 

In 1857 Mr. Lowell was married to Miss Frances Dun- 
lap of Portland, Maine, a highly cultivated and admirable 
lady, to whom he had entrusted the education of his 
daughter during his absence in Europe. He was now in 
the prime of his manhood, and with a noble enthusiasm 
continued for more than a quarter of a century to labor 
both with voice and pen 

"To bear unflinching witness to the truth." 1 

Besides his arduous work as teacher and editor, he 
wrote some of his noblest poems and richest prose in this 
period of his life. The seemingly idle dreamer in the quiet 
college days became the heroic doer in life's mightier con- 
test. As minister to England, Mr. Lowell was very popu- 
lar, and in great demand as the leading speaker on import- 
ant occasions. He was companionable, and very entertain- 
ing in conversation, and as an orator, was easy and grace- 
ful as well as wise and witty. Mrs. Lowell was hardly less 

1A Glance Behind the Curtain 



98 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

popular than her illustrious husband, and when, in the last 
years of his residence in London, death again robbed him 
of his companion, both England and America mourned 
with him in this hour of sorrow. 

Mr. Lowell's religious convictions were deep and gen- 
uine, and his writings are pure, strong, and inspiring. 
Denouncing immoral literature and unchaste writers, he 
says: "Virginibus puerisque. To be sure! let no man 
write a line that he would not have his daughter read/' 
Realizing that the earnestness of the reformer had some- 
times marred the art of the poet, he says: (S I shall never 
be a poet until I get out of the pulpit, and New England 
was all meeting-house when I was growing up," However, 
Mr. Lowell proved by many of his poems that he could 
preach most persuasively without marring or obscuring the 
beauty or charm of the poet's art. 

In a letter to a friend he writes : "I am too old to be 
persuaded by any appearances, however specious, that 
Truth has lost or can lose a whit of that divine quality 
which gives her immortal advantages over Error." In The 
Cathedral his child-like trust is beautifully expressed: 

" I, that still pray at morn and eve, 
Ivoving those roots that feed us from the past, 
And prizing more than Plato things I learned 
At the best academe, a mother's knee." 

Full of honor and peace, and rich in the love not only 
of the American people, but of England as well, Mr. Lowell 
spent the closing years of his life at Elmwood amidst the 
scenes of his childhood. Early one summer morning in 
1891, "peacefully, with only a heavy sigh to indicate the 
separation of that great soul from its worn-out-body," 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 99 

James Russell Lowell passed from this earthly life, but he 
still lives, for 

" No power can die that ever wrought for Truth ; 
Thereby a law of Nature it became, 
And lives unwithered in its sinewy youth, 

When he who called it forth is but a name." 1 

" Freedom needs all her poets : it is they 
Who give her aspiration wings, 
And to the wiser law of music sway 
Her wild imaginings. 

" Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind, 
O Love Divine, for 'tis thy will 
That gracious natures leave their love behind 
To work for Freedom still." 2 

Character and Criticism, — The thought, the purpose, — these are 
the main ends with Lowell, though prose or meter suffer for it, and 
there is no doubt that his manner exactly repeats his mind; and so 
in this case, as ever, the style is again the man. . . . Lowell, then, 
is a poet who seems to represent New England more variously than 
either of his comrades. We find in his work, as in theirs, her loyalty 
and moral purpose. She has been at cost for his training, and he, in 
turn, has read her heart, honoring her as a mother before the world, 
and seeing beauty in her common garb and speech. . . . He is, just 
as truly, an American of the Americans, alive to the idea and move- 
ment of the whole country, singularly independent in his tests of its 
men and products — from whatever section, or in however unprom- 
ising form, they chance to appear. — E. C. Stedman. 

He is one of the noblest and manliest men that ever lived. 

Longfellow. 



1 Lowell's poem, Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing. 

2 Lowell's poem, To the Memory of Hood. 

There are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to 
speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand 
it; the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told. Let us 
find strength and inspiration in the one, amusement and instruction in the 
other, and be honestly thankful for both.— J. R. Lowell : Essay on Pope. 



100 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

References. — Longfellow's poem, The Herons of Elmwood ; 
Holmes's poems — Farewell to J. R. Lowell, James Russell Lowell on 
His Seventieth Birthday, and To James Russell Lowell ; Whittier's 
poems — A Welcome to Lowell and James Russell Lowell ; Literary 
World, June 27, 1885, contains other poems on Lowell; Letters of 
James Russell Lowell, edited by Prof. C. E. Norton ; Home Life of 
Great Authors, by Mrs. Griswold ; Life of Lowell, by F. H. Under- 
wood ; Homes of American Authors, G. W. Curtis; Poets' Homes, 
by R. H. Stoddard ; Poets of America, by E. C. Stedman ; James 
Russell Lowell, by E. C. Stedman, Century, May, 1882; Cambridge 
on the Charles, hy C. F. Richardson, Harper 's, January, 1876 ; James 
Russell Lowell, Outline Studies, leaflet ; Outlooks on Society ( Lowell 
as a Prose Writer ) , by E. P. Whipple ; Mr. Lowell in England, by 
George W. Smalley, Harper's Magazine, April, 1896, and two Biog= 
raphies of Lowell, one by F. H. Underwood, the other by G„ E» 
Woodberry. 

Additional Facts. — Of a family of four, two girls and two boys, James Russell 
Lowell was the youngest. His first important literary effort was a elass-poem 
satirizing the Abolitionists and the Transeendentalists. He afterwards joined 
the Abolitionists. Most of Lowell's earlier poems appeared in The Liberty Bell, 
Anti- Slavery Standard, or the Courier. Mr. Lowell's first marriage occurred in 
December, 1844. Mr. and Mrs. Lowell visited Europe in 1851. Mrs. Lowell died 
October 27, 1853. Lowell was editor of the Atlantic Monthly from 1857 to 1862. 
From 1863 to 1872, joint editor with Professor Norton of North American Review. 
He was appointed Minister to Spain by President Hayes in 1877, transferred to 
London in 1880. The second Mrs. Lowell died in England in 1885. Mr. Lowell 
was made D. C. L. by Oxford in 1873. LL. D. by Cambridge in 1874. Of his four 
children, Blanche died in 1847. Rose died in 1850, Walter in Rome in 1852, and 
was buried there. Mabel (Mrs. Burnett) is living at the old home. Mr. Lowell 
died at Elmwood August 12, 1891. Funeral at Appleton Chapel at noon, Friday, 
the 14th. His body was laid to rest on the hillside in Mt. Auburn Cemetery close 
by the graves of his loved ones, and only a short distance from the grave of 
Longfellow. 

Principal Writings. — Poems (complete) Cambridge Edition ; Com- 
plete Works, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ( 12 vols., $ 17 .50), 
Riverside Edition, which includes : Class Poem, 1838 ; A Year's Life, 
1841, Poems, 1844, 1848; Conversations on Some of the Old Poets, 
1845 ; The Biglow Papers, First Series, 1848 ; A Fable for Critics 
and The Vision of Sir Launj at, 1848; Fireside Travels, 1864; Com- 
memoration Ode, 1865; The Biglow Papers, Second Series, 1866; 
Under the Willows and The Cathedral, 1869 ; Among My Books, two 
series, 1870, 1876 ; My Study Windows, 1871 : Three Memorial Poems 
-—Ode Read at Concord, Under the Old Elm, and An Ode for the 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 101 

Fourth of July, 1876; Democracy and Other Addresses, 1886; 
Heart's-Ease and Rue, 1888 ; Political Essays, 1888 ; Latest Literary 
Essays and Addresses, 1891 ; Old English Dramatists, 1892; Letters, 
edited by C. E. Norton, 1893. 

Selections for Memorizing. 

The rapidity with which the human mind levels itself to the 
standard around it gives us the most pertinent warning as to the 
company we keep. — A Moosehead Journal. 

The broad foreheads and long heads will win the day at last in 
spite of all heraldry, and it will be enough if we feel as keenly as 
our Puritan founders did that those organs of empire may be broad- 
ened and lengthened by culture. — New England Two Centuries Ago. 

We know that wisdom can be won only by wide commerce with 
men and books, and that simplicity, whether of manners or style, is 
the crowning result of the highest culture. — Essay on Spenser. 

Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic char- 
acter, and conscientious observance of duty. — Essay on Wordsworth. 

What men call luck 
Is the prerogative of valiant souls, 
The fealty life % pays its rightful kings. 

A Glance Behind the Curtain. 

And blessed are the horny hands of toil ! 
The busy world shoves angrily aside 
The man who stands with arms akimbo set, 
Until occasion tells him what to do. 

A Glance Behind the Curtain. 

Find the following quotations in the writings of Lowell: 

1. Earth's noblest thing, a Woman perfected. 

2. Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
We Sinais climb and know it not. 

3. God is in all that liberates and lifts, 

In all that humbles, sweetens and consoles. 



Note— For most beautiful and inspiring selections from Lowell's writ- 
ings, see Irish's Treasured Thoughts, pages 48-50. 



102 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

4. One day, with life and heart, 
Is more than time enough to find a world. 

5. Greatly begin ! though thou have time 
But for a line, be that sublime, — 

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. 

6. To let the new life in, we know, 

Desire must ope the portal; — 
Perhaps the longing to be so 
Helps make the soul immortal. 

7. All nations have their message from on high, 
Bach the messiah of some central thought, 
For the fulfilment and delight of Man : 

One has to teach that labor is divine; 
Another Freedom; and another Mind; 
And all, that God is open-eyed and just, 
The happy center and calm heart of all. 

8. The purity, the elegance, the decorum, the chastity of our 
mother-tongue are a sacred trust in our hands. 



Literary Gleaning. — What is said of Lowell and his writ- 
ings? Name some of his best poems and quote fine stanzas. Tell 
about The Biglow Papers. Name some of Lowell's prose works and 
quote favorite passages. Tell about his childhood home, his father 
and mother. Read My Garden Acquaintance. What does he say 
about the birds ? Read Under the Willows, An Indian-Summer 
Reverie, An Invitation, and Longfellow's poem, The Herons of Elm- 
wood. Tell about Lowell's schooldays. Give his description of the 
coming of June. Quote some of his lines about " truth." Read 
A Glance Behind the Curtain, Columbus, Stanzas on Freedom, and 
The Present Crisis. Quote what Garfield says about a " brave man."' 
What does Lowell say about " the code of society," " Greeks," " a 
book," " Anglo-Saxon race " ? Tell about Lowell's life in England. 
Tell about his Three Memorial Poems. Would not a copy of Low- 
ell's poems make you richer ? 




RALPH WALDO EMERSON 



(1803-1882) 

As Wordsworth's poetry is, in my judgment, the most important work 
done in verse, in our language, during the present century, so Emerson's 
'"Essays" are, I think, the most important work done in prose. 

Matthew Arnold. 

I regard Emerson as foremost in the rank of American poets ; he has 
written better things than any of us.— J. G. Whittier. 

Emerson, on his part, has volatilized the essence of New England thought 
into wreaths of spiritual beauty. — E. C. Stedman. 

A diction at once so rich and so homely as his I know not where to 
match in these days of writing by the page ; it is like homespun cloth-of-gold. 

J. R. Lowell. 

In his Boston address on Emerson, Matthew Arnold 
said: " Forty years ago, when I was an under graduate at 
Oxford, voices were in the air there that haunt my memory 



104 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

still. Happy the man who in that susceptible season of 
youth hears such voices ! they are a possession forever. . . 
And besides those voices there came to us in that old 
Oxford time a voice also from this side of the Atlantic — a 
clear and pure voice, which for my ear, at any rate, brought 
a strain as new, and moving, and unforgetable as the strain 
of Newman, or Carlyle, or Goethe. . . . To us at 
Oxford Emerson was but a voice speaking from three thou- 
sand miles away. But so well he spoke, that from that 
time forth Boston Bay and Concord were names invested to 
my ear with a sentiment akin to that which invests for me 
the names of Oxford and Weimar; and snatches of Emer- 
son's strain fixed themselves in my mind as imperishably as 
any of the eloquent words which I have been just now 
quoting." Another noted English writer, H. R. Haweis, 
says : ' • When I was at college I exchanged four hand- 
some volumes of Montaigne for one volume of Emer- 
son's Essays. I have never regretted my bargain; and 
when I open my well-worn copy, I still find the Parthenon 
and the Forest Primeval alike instinct with the great OvER- 
SOUL, and vocal with the music of God." How we ought 
to rejoice that in this world of ours there are some things 
that refuse to be weighed or measured, and will not be 
changed into money or merchandise — sunsets, rainbows, 
patches of blue sky, the beauty of the flowers, the grandeur 
of the mountains, the vastness of the ocean, the sublime 
music of the storm ! Many years ago Lowell wrote : ' ' There 
is no man living to whom, as a writer, so many of us feel 
and thankfully acknowledge so great an indebtedness for 
ennobling impulses. . . . Emerson awakened us, saved 
us from the body of this death. . . . It is the sound 
of the trumpet the young soul longs for, careless what 
breath may fill it. Sidney heard it in the ballad of ' Chevy 
Chase', and we in Emerson. Nor did it blow retreat, but 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 1Q5 

called to us with assurance of victory." How deep and 
rich, how ennobling and inspiring are Emerson's essays on 
Domestic Life, History, Self -Reliance , Compensation, Spir- 
itual Laws, Friendship, Heroism, Circles, Art, Character, 
Education, Uses of Great Men, Social Aims, Over-Soul, 
Immortality , and many others ! In Self-Reliance he says : 
" My life should be unique; it should be an alms, a battle, 
a conquest, a medicine." 

In his essay on Art he writes : ' ' Art has not yet come 
to its maturity, if it do not put itself abreast with the most 
potent influences of the world, if it is not practical and 
moral, if it do not stand in connection with the conscience, 
if it do not make the poor and uncultivated feel that it 
addresses them with a voice of lofty cheer." For genuine 
patriotism and exalted ideas of our country and its destiny, 
of citizenship, of manhood, Emerson's American Ad- 
dresses,* The American Scholar, The Fortune of the 
Republic, The Yoiing American, and American Civilization, 
are unsurpassed, and should be studied both in the school 
and the home. They abound in such gems as these: "Eet 
the passion for America cast out the passion for Europe. 
Here let there be what the earth waits for, — exalted man- 
hood. . . . They who find America insipid, — they for 
whom London and Paris have spoiled their own homes, can 
be spared to return to those cities. . . . The class of 
which I speak make themselves merry without duties. 
They sit in decorated club-houses in the cities, and burn 
tobacco and play whist; in the country they sit idle in 
stores and bar-rooms, and burn tobacco, and gossip and 
sleep. They complain of the flatness of American life; 
'America has no illusions, no romance.' They have no 
perception of its destiny. They are not Americans." 

*No. 42 of Riverside Literature Series contains these addresses. 



106 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

"The flowering of civilization is in the finished man,, 
the man of sense, of grace, of accomplishment, of social 
power, — the gentleman." 

"L,et us realize that this country, the last found, is 
the great charity of God to the human race." 

"The end of all political struggle is to establish 
morality as the basis of all legislation. . . . Morality is 
the object of government. We want a state of things in 
which crime will not pay; a state of things which allows, 
every man the largest liberty compatible with the liberty 
of every other man." 

"The people, and the world, are now suffering from 
the want of religion and honor in the public mind. In 
America, out-of-doors all seems a market, in-doors an air- 
tight stove of conventionajism. Everybody who comes 
into our houses savors of these habits; the men, of the 
market; the women, of the custom." 

"We live in a new and exceptional age. America is 
another word for Opportunity." 

Some of Emerson's best poems are The Problem, The 
Dirge, Good-Bye, May -Day, Woodnotes, The Apology, 
Concord Hymn, Threnody , and My Garden. In The 
Rhodora we find the oft- quoted gem : 

" Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being." 

The following beautiful lines from May-Day are full 
of the melody and fragrance of the sweet springtime: 

" Wreaths for the May ! for happy Spring 
To-day shall all her dowry bring, 
The love of kind, the joy, the grace, 
Hymen of element and race, 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 107 

Knowing well to celebrate 
With song and hue and star and state, 
With tender light and youthful cheer, 
The spousals of the new-born year." 



He who might Plato's banquet grace, 

Have I not seen before me sit, 
And watched his puritanic face, 

With more than Eastern wisdom lit? 
Shrewd mystic! who, upon the back 
Of his Poor Richard's Almanac 
Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream, 
L,inks Manu's age of thought to Fulton's age of steam! 

Whittier : The Last Walk in Autumn. 

In historic old Boston, Mass., our poet-philosopher, 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born May 25, 1803. His 
father, the Rev. William Emerson, minister of the First 
Church of Boston, was a man of marked ability and true 
piety. His father died, when Waldo was seven years old, 
but his mother, a very superior woman, continued to live 
in the parish house and to care for her family, five boys 
and a girl, all under ten years of age. Her chief desire 
was to educate her children , and for this she suffered priva- 
tions and endured hardships which they shared nobly and 
bravely. 

Having prepared for college in Boston Latin School, 
the subject of this sketch entered Harvard at the age of 
fourteen. While in college he gained a local reputation as 
a writer of both prose and verse, and was honored by being 
chosen class-poet at the time of his graduation in 1821. 
At the close of his college days he spent some time as a 
teacher in a girls' school which his older brother had estab- 
lished in Boston. After studying theology in the Cam- 
bridge Divinity School, with Dr. Channing as his teacher, 
he was "approbated to preach," and soon afterwards was 
chosen minister of the Second Church of Boston, but re- 



108 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

signed three years later because of his liberal and mystical 
views of religion. A few months previous to the close of 
his pastorate, death had deprived him of the companion- 
ship of his young wife, to whom he had been married not 
quite three years, and his own health was precarious. For 
a change of scene and with the hope of repairing his broken 
health, he crossed the ocean in 1832, and spent a year in 
Europe, chiefly in Italy and England. On his return he 
went to stay with his mother who had moved to Concord 
and was now living in the historic Old Manse, * afterwards 
made famous as the home of Hawthorne and so charmingly 
described in his Mosses from an Old Manse. In Emerson 
and his Friends hi Concord, Mr. F. B. Sanborn says : 
"Emerson had visited Concord often as a child to see his 
relatives in the Old Manse, which his grandfather built; 
had been carried there as to a city of refuge, with his 
mother and brothers, in the hard winter of 1814-15; had 
been a school-boy, a theological student and a youthful 
preacher there, before he made it his abode in 1834, the 
year after his return from his first tour in Europe." This 
is truly historic and classic ground. From the window in 
this Old Manse Emerson's grandfather watched the "Con- 
cord Fight." Here Emerson lived with his mother and 
roamed these fields with his brothers. Here he wrote his 
first volume, Nature. To this same old house Hawthorne 
brought his bride, and here he spent three happy, idyllic 
years full of love and mysterious dreams and visions. 
Opposite this same old house is Grandfather Ripley's hill, 
or " Eastern Hill," sacred to Emerson and his brothers. 
In the rear of the Old Manse the orchard slopes gently 
down to the Concord River, and to the right and close by 
is the "Battle Ground," and the "Bridge" at one end of 

•■'See picture of the Old Manse in the Hawthorne sketch, page 126. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 109 

which is the monument in memory of the British soldiers 
who fought here, and across the river and at the other end 
where on that memorable morning of the 19th of April, 
1775, "the embattled farmers stood," now stands the mon- 
ument called the "Minute Man," on which are carved 
the following imperishable lines from Emerson's Co?icord 

Hymn : 

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood 

And fired the shot heard round the world." 

While lecturing "in Plymouth, the land of the Pil- 
grims," Mr. Emerson formed the acquaintance of a most es- 
timable young lady of that place, Miss Eydia Jackson, who 
afterwards became his wife, and proved to be a most suit- 
able and worthy companion, making a restful and inspiring 
home, without which Mr. Emerson, with all his genius, 
could not have left to American literature and the world so 
great an inheritance of imperishable riches. In reply to one 
of Miss Jackson's letters, in which she urges the claims of 
Plymouth as their future home, Mr. Emerson makes a plea 
for Concord as a better home for a poet, and gives the fol- 
lowing very just estimate of his powers and limitations : 
"I am born a poet, — of a low class without doubt, yet a 
poet. That is my nature and vocation. My singing, to be 
sure, is very husky, and for the most part, in prose. Still 
I am a poet in the sense of a perceiver and dear lover of the 
harmonies that are in the soul and in matter. A sunset, a 
snowstorm, a forest, a certain river-view, are more to me 
than many friends, and do ordinarily divide my day with 
my books." The expression, ' ' a certain river- view," brings 
to mind the following from Emerson's journal: "I went 
Sunday evening, at sundown, to Dr. Ripley's hill, and re- 
newed my vows to the genius of that place. Somewhat of 



110 



AMERICAN AUTHORS 



awe, somewhat grand and solemn, mingled with the beauty 
that shined afar, around. I beheld the river, like God's 
love, journeying out of the gray past into the green future." 
In the autumn of 1835, Mr. Emerson and Miss Jackson 
were married in the fine old mansion in Plymouth called the 
Winslow house, and they came to Concord and " set up a 
fireside" in the house still known as the Emerson house, 
which is now occupied by their son, Dr. Edward Emerson. 




EMERSON'S HOME, CONCORD, MASS. 



It is on the Lexington road over which the British soldiers 
fled after the fight at the "Bridge," and a short distance 
farther down the same road are the Orchard House, the 
early home of the Alcotts, and the Wayside, one of their 
later homes, but more famous as the place where the great 
romancer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, spent the closing years of 
his life. The Emerson home is a plain, square, wooden 
house with horse-chestnut trees in the front yard and sur- 
rounded by pines and other evergreens. The orchard 
which Mr. Emerson planted still furnishes abundance of 
fruit, and only two miles away are the now famous " Lake 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON HI 

Walden," the "wood-lot," and the later purchased " wood- 
land." 

The bright, beautiful children that came to gladden the 
Emerson home were a perpetual wonder and delight to this 
fond father. In his essay on Domestic Life Mr. Emerson 
writes charmingly of these sweet little autocrats of the fire- 
side : "The size of the nestler is comic, and its tiny be- 
seeching weakness is compensated perfectly by the happy 
patronizing look of the mother, who is a sort of high re- 
posing Providence toward it. Welcome to the parents the 
puny struggler, strong in his weakness, — his little arms 
more irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with 
persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had 
not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice 
on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child, soften all 
hearts to pity and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. 
His ignorance is morex charming than all knowledge, and 
his little sins more bewitching than any virtue." In the 
same essay is the following picture of a genuine and typical 
home and of truly royal hospitality: "I pray you, O excel- 
lent wife, not to cumber yourself and me to get a rich din- 
ner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our 
gate, nor a bed-chamber made ready at too great a cost. 
These things, if they are curious in, they can get for a dol- 
lar at any village. But let this stranger, if he will, in your 
looks, in your accent and behavior, read your heart and 
earnestness, your thought and will, — which he can not buy 
at any price in any village or city, and which he may well 
travel fifty miles, and dine sparely, and sleep hard, in order 
to behold. Certainly let the board be spread, and let the 
bed be dressed for the traveler, but let not the emphasis of 
hospitality lie in these things. Honor to the house where 
they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the 
intellect is awake and reads the law of the universe, the 



112 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

soul worships truth and love, honor and courtesy flow into 
all deeds." And such was Mr. Emerson's own home. It 
was most helpful as well as simple and beautiful, restful } T et 
stimulating and inspiring, serene and soothing yet forever 
urging the soul to try its wings in higher and more ex- 
tended flights. In the Carlyle- Emerson Correspondence \ 
in Louisa Alcott's Reminiscenses of Emerso?i, and in San- 
born's Familiar Letters of Thoreau, we catch delightful 
glimpses of Mr. Emerson's home-life, of his mother, of Mrs. 
Emerson and the children. 

Except his three visits to Europe, a journey in the 
South, one in the West, and his lecture tours in his own 
country, Mr. Emerson spent his life in Concord. With 
such neighbors as Henry D. Thoreau, Ellery Channing, 
Margaret Fuller, A. Bronson Alcott, Louisa M. Alcott, 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Judge Hoar, Frank B. Sanborn, W. 
T. Harris, and others, whose names are not unknown to 
fame, together with the distinguished visitors who came 
from near and far to this modern Mecca to see the Sage of 
Concord and his neighbors, Mr. Emerson was surrounded 
by immortals and needed not to cross continents and oceans 
to enjoy their companionship. In her Reminiscences, Louisa 
M. Alcott writes: "The marble walk that leads to his 
hospitable door has been trodden by the feet of many pil- 
grims from all parts of the world, drawn thither by their 
love and reverence for him. In that famous stud}', his 
towns-people have had the privilege of seeing many of the 
great and good men and women of our time, and learning 
of their gracious host the finest lessons of true courtesy. 
. Here too in this pleasant room, with the green 
hills opposite, and the pines murmuring musically before 
the windows, Emerson wrote essays more helpful than 
most sermons; lectures which created the lyceum ; poems 
full of power and sweetness; and, better than any song or 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 113 

sermon, has lived a life so noble, true, and beautiful, that its 
wide-spreading influence is felt on both sides of the sea. 
. . . Many a gay revel has been held under the pines, 
whole schools taking possession of the poet's premises; 
and many a child will gladly recall hereafter the paternal 
face that smiled on them, full of interest in their gambols, 
and of welcome for the poorest. Mrs. Emerson, from her 
overflowing garden, planted flowers along the roadside, and 
in the plot of ground before the nearest schoolhouse, to 
beautify the children's daily life. Sweeter and more im- 
perishable than these will be the recollections of many 
kindnesses bestowed by one, who, in the truest sense of 
the word, was a friend to all. As he lay dying, children 
stopped to ask if he were better; and all the sunshine faded 
out of the little faces when the sad answer came. Very 
willing feet roamed the woods for green garlands to decorate 
the old church where he would come for the last time; 
busy hands worked till midnight, that every house should 
bear some token of mourning; Spring gave him her few 
early flowers and budding boughs from the haunts that 
will know him no more ; and old and young forgot for a 
little while, their pride in the illustrious man, to sorrow for 
the beloved friend and neighbor." 

On Sunday, April 30, 1882, all that was mortal of 
Ralph Waldo Emerson was borne by loving hands up the 
wooded hillside in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and tenderly 
laid to rest on the brow of the hill in the midst of the tall 
forest pines, that stand, like heavenly sentinels, to guard 
this hallowed ground. On the well-known and well-worn 
"Ridge Path" which leads up the hillside to Emerson's 
grave, the literary pilgrim of to-day lingers reverently at 
the graves of Emerson's distinguished friends and neigh- 
bors, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Eouisa M. Alcott, and others 
scarcely less famous. Emerson's grave is on the highest 



114 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

spot in all that range of hills, and one of his favorite haunts 
when rambling in the woods alone or with his friends. 

On the gigantic rose-quartz bowlder, which so fittingly 
marks his grave, is a tablet with his name, place and time 
of birth and death, and these very appropriate lines from 
his poem, The Problem : 

" The passive Master lent his hand 
To the vast soul that o'er him planned." 

How we love to linger here by Emerson's grave ! All 
things around seem filled with his serene and beautiful 
presence. This hallowed hilltop speaks eloquently of the 
nobility and loftiness of his life, and we remember his 
words: " Live as on a mountain. Let men see, let them 
know a real man, who lives as he was meant to live." 
This rose-quartz bowlder, brought from the mountains of 
New Hampshire, tells of the ruggedness, simplicity, and 
beauty of his character. These noble pines stretching 
themselves up toward the sky with this loftiest one of 
them all standing at the head of his grave, speak of his 
noble longings and lofty aspirations, and again memory 
repeats his beautiful words: "That which "befits us, 
embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheerful- 
ness and courage and the endeavor to realize our aspira- 
tions. Shall not the heart, which has received so much, 
trust the Power by which it lives?" And as we walk 
slowly and reverently down the hillside, the trees, the air, 
the very sky itself, all seem to whisper : 

" So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, I can." * 

■■'■ Emerson's Voluntaries. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 115 

Character and Criticism. — For us the whole life of the man is 
distilled in the clear drop of every sentence, and behind each we 
divine the force of a noble character, the weight of a large capital 
of thinking and being. We do not go to hear what Emerson says so 
much as to hear Emerson. ... I have heard some great speakers 
and some accomplished orators, but never any that so moved and 
persuaded men as he. There is a kind of undertow in that rich 
baritone of his that sweeps our minds from their foothold into 
deeper waters with a drift we cannot and would not resist. — J. R. 
Loweee : Emerson the Lecturer. 

One day there came into our pulpit the most gracious of mor- 
tals, with a face all benignity, who gave out the first hymn and made 
the first prayer as an angel might have read and prayed. Our choir 
was a pretty good one, but its best was coarse and discordant after 
Emerson's voice. — Charles Congden. 

In July, 1848, George Eliot, in a letter to her friend, Sara 
Hennell, wrote: "I have seen Emerson — the first man I have ever 
seen." \ 

He has taught his countrymen the worth of virtue, wisdom, 
courage, — above all, to fashion their lives upon a self-reliant pattern, 
obeying the dictates of their own souls. — E. C. Stedman. 

In a letter to a friend Lowell writes : " I hope you have seen 
something of Emerson, who is as sweet and wholesome as an Indian- 
summer afternoon." In later years he writes : " He is as sweetly 
high-minded as ever, and when one meets him the Fall of Adam 
seems a false report. Afterwards we feel of our throats, and are 
startled by the tell-tale lump there." 

References. — Emerson in Concord, by E. W. Emerson ; Emerson 
and, His Friends in Concord, by F. B. Sanborn in New England 
Magazine, November, ] 890 ; Homes and Haunts of Emerson, by F. 
B. Sanborn in Scribner's Monthly, February, 1879 ; Poets of America^ 
by E. C. Stedman ; Emerson at Home and Abroad, by M. D. Con- 
way; A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by J. Fv. Cabot; The 
Genius and Character of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by F. B. Sanborn ; 
Emerson, Blackwood's Magazine, December, 1847; Lowell's Essay, 
Emerson the Lecturer ; Ralph Waldo Emerson, by O. W. Holmes, in 
American Men of Letters Series; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philoso- 



116 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

pher and Poet, by A. H. Guernsey ; Emerson and Carlyle, by E. P. 
Whipple, North American Review, May, 1883 ; The Influence of 
Emerson, by W. F. Thayer ; The Transcendentalism of New England, 
by John Orr in The International Review, October, 1882; Remin- 
iscences of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Louisa M. Alcott in Parton's 
Princes, Authors, and Statesmen of Our Times ; literary World 
Emerson Number, May 22, 1880 ; Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Geo. w! 
Cooke. 

Additional Facts. — Emerson was the descendant of an unbroken ancestry, 
both paternal and maternal, of seven or more generations of ministers and 
teachers. Entered the Divinity School in 1825. Was licensed to preach in Oct., 1826- 
Traveled in the South for his health in 1826-7. Married Ellen Louisa Tucker in 
Sept, 1829. His wife died in 1831. First tour in Europe — sailed Dec. 25, 1832. 
Returned to New York, Oct. 9, 1833. Visited Carlyle and met other literary per- 
sons on this tour. Began lecturing in 1834. Emerson spoke of himself as the 
"incorrigible spouting Yankee." Bought the Concord home in July, 1835. Mar- 
ried Miss Jackson of Plymouth, Sept. 14, 1835. Second visit to Europe 1847-8. Lec- 
tured in the large cities of England and Scotland. On this visit to England he 
saw Wordsworth, Miss Martineau, Rogers, Hallam, Macaulay, Milnes, Milman, 
" Barry Cornwall," Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Leigh Hunt, D'Israeli, Helps, 
Wilkinson, Bailey, Kenyon, Forster, Clough, Arnold, Patmore, Robert Browning, 
Owen, Sedgwick, Faraday, Buckland, Lyell, De la Beche, Hooker, Carpenter, Bab- 
bage, Edward Forbes, Miss Baillie, Lady Morgan, Mrs. Jameson, and Mrs. Somer- 
ville. Made a journey to California in 1871, described in James B. Thayer's A 
Western Journey with Mr. Emerson. Emerson called his wife " Lidian " instead 
of "Lvdia," as he thought it was more euphonious with Emerson. In July of 
1872, Emerson's house was destroyed by fire, and he became a tenant of the Old 
Manse. In October he made his last visit to Europe, and when he returned to 
Concord in May, 1873, his neighbors met him at the train, and escorted him to his 
home which they had rebuilded in his absence. At Emerson's funeral, addresses 
were made by Judge Hoar and James Freeman Clarke. Emerson had four child- 
ren, Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward. Waldo died Jan. 27, 1842, aged five years 
and three months. Ellen is unmarried and spends most of the time in the Con- 
cord home with her brother, Dr. Edward Emerson. Edith is now Mrs. W. H. For- 
bes of Boston. The death of Mr. Emerson's brothers, Edward and Charles, called 
forth the poem, The Dirge. Mr. Emerson was editor of The Dial '1822-24 He was 
leader of the Transcendentalists — see Emerson's lecture, The Transcendent alists, 
in his Nature, Addresses and Lectures. The chapel close to the Orchard House 
where " The Concord School of Philosophy " held its meetings still attracts the 
attention of visitors to Concord. Mr. Emerson made his third and last visit to 
Europe in 1872. At Longfellow's funeral, March 26, Mr. Emerson contracted a 
cold which hastened his death, which occurred a month later, April 27, 1882. 

Principal Writings. — Right Hand of Fellowship, 1830; Historical 
Discourse at Concord, 1835; Lectures on Biography, delivered 1835; 
Nature, [Anon] 1836; The American Scholar, delivered 1837; Dart- 
mouth College Oration, 1838; Divinity College Address, 1838; Or a- 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 117 

Hon on the Method of Nature, 1841 ; Essays, First Series, 1841 ; Sec- 
ond Series, 1844 ; The Young American : A Lecture, 1844; Address 
on Emancipation in the West Indies, 1844; Poems, 1847 and 1865; 
Miscellanies, 1849; Representative Men, 1850; E7iglish Traits, 1856; 
7Vz<? Conduct of Life, 1860; Society and Solitude, 1870; Edited Par- 
nassus, 1874; Letters and Social Aims, 1875; Poems, Revised, 1878; 
Lecture on 77z^ Fortune of the Republic, 1878 ; Lecture on The Sov- 
ereignty of Ethics, 1878 ; Natural History of Intellect, two volumes, 
published 1893. Complete works, pub. by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
(12 vol., $1,25 or $1.75 each). 

Selections for Memorizing. 

Once or twice in a lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the charm 
of noble manners, in the presence of a man or woman who have no 
bar in their nature, but whose character emanates freely in their 
word and gesture. A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face ; 
a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form : it gives a higher 
pleasure than statues or pictures ; it is the finest of the fine arts. 

Manners. 

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only 
by overt actions and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath 
every moment. — Self Reliance. 

They who make up the final verdict upon every book, are not 
the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears ; but a 
court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and 
not to be overawed, decides upon every man's title to fame. 

Spiritual Laws. 

If you would be a man, speak what you think to-day in words 

as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks 

in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day. 

Self -Reliance. 
All my hurts 
My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk, 
A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, 
A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine, 
Salve my worst wounds. — Musketaquid. 



118 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, 
At the sophist schools and the learned clan; 
For what are they all, in their high conceit, 
When man in the bush with God may meet? 

Good-Bye. 
Find the following quotations in the writings of 
Emerson : 

1. Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances, the 
senses are despotic. 

2. Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the 
liar, but is a stab at the health of human society. 

3. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a 
clean and chaste body. That is not an inspiration which we owe to 
narcotics, but some counterfeit excitement and fury. 

4. There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, 
like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us. 

5. As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and 
valor of the enemy he kills, passes into himself, so we gain the 

strength of the temptation we resist. 

6. Virtue alone is sweet society, 

It keeps the key to all heroic hearts, 
And opens you a welcome in them all. 



Literary Gleaning. — Quote what Arnold, Stedman, Cong- 
den, George Eliot, and Lowell say of Emerson and his writings. 
What does Haweis say about his copy of Emerson's Essays ? Name 
some of Emerson's best essays and quote fine passages. Quote the 
gem about "beauty" in the poem, The Rhodora. Have you read 
Emerson's American Addresses? What does he say about the 
people who " make themselves merry without duties " ? What about 
" civilization/' " political struggle," and " Opportunity? " Tell about 
Emerson's childhood and schooldays. Tell about his home in 
Concord and quote that fine passage from his Concord Hymn. What 
does he say about " the nestler " ? about those who have " alighted at 
our gate " ? Tell about his Concord friends and neighbors. Do 
Emerson's works occupy a place of honor in your present or pro- 
spective library ? 



iff 




NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

(1804-1864) 

There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare 
That you hardly at first see the strength that is there ; 
A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet, 
So earnest, so graceful, so solid, so fleet, 
Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet. 

J. R. L,owell: A Fable for Critics. 

There was something of strangeness even in his cherished intimacies, as 
if he set himself afar from all, and from himself with the rest; the most diffident 
of men, as coy as a maiden, he could only be won by some cunning artifice, his 
reserve was so habitual, his isolation so entire, the solitude so vast. 

A. Bronson Alcott. 

Mr. C. F. Richardson says : "In Hawthorne's books, to 
be sure, are the profoundest sin, the deepest vail of misery 
and mystery, the infinite gloom of which Mrs. Hawthorne 
wrote ; but always above them the tremendous truth writ- 
ten with characters of fire, and vet with 'divine touches of 



120 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

beauty ', with many a picture of artlessly lovely nature and 
life, and with the tender spirit of a child pervading the 
whole." In 1843, while living in the Old Manse, Haw- 
thorne wrote in his journal : "I am glad to think that God 
sees through my heart ; and if any angel has power to pene- 
trate it, he is welcome to everything that is there." Again 
he writes : "Living in solitude till the fullness of time was 
come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of 
my heart. Had I sooner made my escape into the world, I 
should have grown hard and rough, and been covered with 
earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by 
rude encounters with the multitude." A most rare genius 
grown to rugged and noble manhood without losing one 
whit of the freshness, sweetness, and beauty of childhood — 
this was Hawthorne the writer and Hawthorne the man. 
Who but Hawthorne could have written the Twice-Told 
Tales, the Mosses fro7n an Old Manse, the Wonder-Book, 
and Tanglewood Tales? A Rill from the Town Pump, 
Little Daffydowndilly , The Old Manse, Buds and Bird Voices, 
Little Annie's Ramble, and other selections from his writings 
possess the indescribable charm and dewy freshness of 
a perfect May morning. Can any one forget the passage 
in The Old Manse in which he tells how motherly-tender 
Nature is in autumn, and then leads us through Nature up 
to Nature's God, weaving it all into a most beautiful and 
heart-convincing argument for immortality? He writes: 
"It is impossible not to be fond of our mother now ; for she 
is so fond of us ! At other periods she does not make this 
impression on me, or only at rare intervals; but in those 
genial days of autumn, when she has perfected her harv- 
ests and accomplished every needful thing that was given 
her to do, then she overflows with a blessed superfluity 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 121 

of love. She has leisure to caress her children now. It is 
good to be alive at such times. Thank Heaven for breath 
— yes, for mere breath — when it is made up of a heavenly 
breeze like this ! It comes with a real kiss upon our cheeks ; 
it would linger fondly around us if it might; but, since it 
must be gone, it embraces us with its whole kindly heart 
and passes onward to embrace likewise the next thing it 
meets. A blessing is flung abroad and scattered far and 
wide over the earth, to be gathered up by all who choose. 
I recline upon the still unwithered grass and whisper to 
myself, ' O perfect day ! O beautiful world ! O beneficent 
God ! ' And it is the promise of a blessed eternity ; for our 
Creator would never have made such lovely days and have 
given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond 
all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal. This 
sunshine is the golden pledge thereof. It beams through 
the gates of paradise and shows us glimpses far inward." 

In Little Annie's Ramble, he says : " If I pride myself 
on anything, it is because I have a smile that children love; 
and, on the other hand, there are few grown ladies that 
could entice me from the side of little Annie ; for I delight 
to let my mind go hand in hand with the mind of a sinless 
child. So, come, Annie ; but if I moralize as we go, do not 
listen to me; only look about you, and be merry." He 
closes with the following most tender and beautiful tribute 
to childhood : "When our infancy is almost forgotten, and 
our boyhood long departed, though it seems but as yester- 
day ; when life settles darkly down upon us, and we doubt 
whether to call ourselves young any more, then it is good to 
steal away from the society of bearded men, and even of 
gentler woman, and spend an hour or two with children. 
After drinking from those fountains of still fresh existence, 



122 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

we shall return into the crowd, as I do now, to struggle on- 
ward and do our part in life, perhaps as fervently as ever, 
but, for a time, with a kinder and purer heart, and a spirit 
more lightly wise. All this by thy sweet magic, dear little 
Annie!" _ 

On our national birthday, July 4, 1804, in historic old 
Salem, Mass., was born the ''great New England roman- 
cer," Nathaniel Hawthorne. His father was a sailor, and 
at this time captain in the merchant marine, and is de- 
scribed as "a silent, reserved, severe man, of an athletic 
and rather slender build, and habitually of a rather melan- 
choly cast of thought." His mother, Elizabeth Clarke 
Manning, was gifted, refined, and beautiful. The mar- 
riage was a very happy one, but this happiness was of 
short duration. In 1808, while Captain Hawthorne was at 
Surinam, he died of yellow fever at the early age of thirty- 
three. Of his boyhood Hawthorne writes in 1853: "When 
I was eight or nine years old, my mother, with her three 
children, took up her residence on the banks of Sebago 
Lake in Maine, where the family owned a large tract of 
land; and here I ran quite wild, and would, I doubt not, 
have willingly run wild till this time, fishing all day long, 
or shooting with an old fowling-piece; but reading a good 
deal, too, especially in Shakespeare and The Pilgrim's 
Progress, and any poetry or light books within my reach. 
. . . But by and by my good mother began to think it 
was necessary for her boy to do something else; so I was 
sent back to Salem, where a private instructor fitted me for 
college." It seems, however, that this separation was more 
than the fond mother and affectionate sisters could endure, 
and within a few months the family was again settled in 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 123 

Salem. About this time, while playing bat-and-ball, young 
Hawthorne received an injury which, like many affairs of 
this kind, proved to be a blessing in disguise. After Haw- 
thorne's death, his sister Elizabeth wrote to Julian Haw- 
thorne : "I remember that he used to lie upon the floor 
and read, and that he went upon two crutches. Every- 
body thought that, if he lived, he would be always lame. 
Mr. Joseph E. Worcester, the author of the Dictionary, 
who at one time taught a school in Salem, to which your 
father went, was very kind to him; he came every evening 
to hear him repeat his lessons. It was during this long 
lameness that he acquired his habit of constant reading. 
Undoubtedly he would have wanted many of the qualities 
which distinguished him in after life, if his genius had not 
thus been shielded in childhood." 

Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821, gradu- 
ating in the famous class of 1825, with Henry W. Long- 
fellow, George B. Cheever and John S. C. Abbott among 
his classmates. His life-long friend, Franklin Pierce, was 
a member of the preceding class. In college Hawthorne's 
English compositions attracted the attention of his teachers 
and classmates. One of the Bowdoin professors says: 
"His themes were in the sustained, finished style that 
gives to his mature productions an inimitable charm." 
Prof. Newman used to take Hawthorne's compositions 
home and read them to his family. Prof. Packard says: 
' ' The recollection is very distinct of Hawthorne's reluctant 
step and averted look when he presented himself at the 
professor's study, and submitted a composition which no 
man in his class could equal." From the time of his grad- 
uation in 1825 to 1838, thirteen long years, he lived with 
his mother and sisters in Salem in almost complete isola- 



124 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

tion. In these years of seclusion and solitude Hawthorne 
communed with the master spirits of the world in their 
best books, wrote, and dreamed. They were years of 
growth and perfection of native talents. "A talent is 
perfected in solitude; a character in the stream of the 
world," says Goethe. In this mysterious old town with its 
quaint buildings and quainter customs, with its sailors and 
their strange and superstitious stories, and with its memor- 
able "gallows hill" where the witches were hanged, the 
genius of Hawthorne, like a rare flower growing almost 
unnoticed in some secluded spot, budded and blossomed, 
and gave to the world its first rich fruitage in the True 
Stories, such sketches as The Gentle Boy, and the Twice- 
Told Tales. 

In his rough experiences as weigher and gauger in the 
Boston Custom House, and in the more fruitful experiences 
of Brook Farm out of which his imagination builded The 
Blithedale Roi?ia?ice, Hawthorne's courage and manhood 
were put to the test, and proved to be thoroughly genuine; 
for he did not shirk the distasteful duties of the Custom 
House or the Farm, and, unlike his Baffydowndilly, he 
never ran away from Master Toil. Interesting as these 
experiences are, they must give place to the perfecting and 
crowning event in the development of this remarkable 
genius — the event that re-created Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
changing discouragement into hope, gloom into gladness, 
and filling the remaining days and 3 T ears of his earthly life 
with sweetness and beauty. 

With what reverence and tenderness does Julian Haw- 
thorne write of his father and mother! He sa3 T s: "The life 
of a man happily married cannot fail to be influenced by the 
character and conduct of his wife. . . . Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne was particularl}' susceptible to influences of this 
kind; and all the available evidence goes to show that the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 125 

most fortunate event of his life was, probably, his marriage 
with Sophia Peabody. To attempt to explain and describe 
his career without taking this event into consideration 
would, therefore, be like trying to imagine a sun without 
heat or a day without a sun. Nothing seems less likely 
than that he would have accomplished his work in literature 
independently of her sympatlry and companionship. . . . 
She believed in his inspiration ; and her office was to pro- 
mote, so far as in her lay, the favorableness of the condi- 
tions under which it should manifest itself. As food and 
repose nourish and refresh the body, so did she refresh and 
nourish her husband's mind and heart. . . . Her learn- 
ing and accomplishments were rare and varied and yet she 
was always childlike in her modesty and simplicity. She 
read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; she was familiar with his- 
tory; and in drawing, painting, and sculpture she showed 
a loving talent not far removed from original genius. . . . 
Her husband appreciated her, but she had no appreciation 
of herself. She onfy felt what a privilege it was to love 
and minister to such a man, and to be loved by him. For 
he was not, as so many men are, a merely passive and com- 
placent absorber of all this devotion. What she gave, he 
returned ; she never touched him without a response ; she 
never called to him without an echo. . . . The springs 
of gratitude and recognition in him could not run dry; his 
wife always remained to him a sort of mystery of goodness 
and helpfulness." Again he writes : " Sophia Peabody was 
Hawthorne's re-creating angel." Hawthorne and Miss Pea- 
body were married in 1842 and moved into the Old Manse 
at Concord, where, with the Kmersons, Alcotts, Kllery 
Channing, Margaret Fuller, and David D. Thoreau as neigh- 
bors, they spent three delightful years, which are described 
by Hawthorne in his journal and in The Old Manse, and by 
Mrs. Hawthorne in her letters to her mother. April 20, 



126 



AMERICAN AUTHORS 



1843, Mrs. Hawthorne writes in a letter to her mother: 
' ' Sunday afternoon the birds were sweetly mad, and the 
lovely rage of song drove them hither and thither, and 
swelled their breasts amain. It was nothing less than a 
tornado of fine music. I kept saying, 'Yes, yes, yes, I 
know dear little maniacs ! I know there never was such an 
air, such a day, such a sky, such a God! I know it, — I 
know it!' But they would not be pacified. Their throats 




THE OLD MANSE 



must have been made of fine gold, or they would have been 
rent by such rapture quakes." These idyllic years in the 
Old Manse, the year the Hawthorne's spent in Boston, the 
three years at Salem and The Scarlet Letter which made 
Hawthorne famous, the happy year at Lenox in the Berk- 
shire hills and The House of the Seven Gables and the Wonder- 
Book, West Newton and The Blithedale Romance, The Way- 
side in Concord, their own home, the four years in England, 
two in Italy, The Marble Faun, home again at The Way- 
side, — all this with many tender and beautiful letters of 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 



127 



Hawthorne and Mrs. Hawthorne as well as many interest- 
ing letters from their distinguished friends, is given in 
Julian Hawthorne's two delightful volumes entitled Haw- 
thorne and His Wife. One must read these letters of Haw- 
thorne and his wife to understand the beauty of their home- 
life. At the Old Manse Hawthorne writes in his journal: 
" Methinks my little wife is twin sister to the spring; so 
they should greet one another tenderly, — for they both are 








THE WAYSIDE 



fresh and dewy, both full of hope and cheerfulness; both 
have bird- voices, always singing out of their hearts; both 
are sometimes overcast with flitting mists, which only make 
the flowers bloom brighter ; and both have power to renew 
and re-create the weary spirit. I have married the Spring! 
I am husband to the month of May ! " In Mrs. Hawthorne's 
journal we read: ''His conscience is too fine and high to 
permit him to be arbitrary. His will is strong but not to 
govern others. He is so simple, so transparent, so just, so 
tender, so magnanimous, that my highest instinct could only 
correspond with his will. I never knew such delicacy of 



128 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

nature. . . . Was ever such a union of power and gentle- 
ness, softness and spirit, passion and reason? I think it 
must be partly smiles of angels that make the air and light 
so pleasant here. My dearest Love waits upon God like a 
child." In a letter to her mother, Mrs. Hawthorne writes: 
"He has perfect dominion over himself in every respect, so 
that to do the highest, wisest, loveliest thing is not the least 
effort to him, any more than it is to a baby to be innocent. 
. . . I never knew such loftiness, so simply borne. I 
have never known him to stoop from it in the most trivial 
household matter, any more than in a larger and more pub- 
lic one. . . . Happy, happiest is the wife, who can bear 
such and so sincere testimony to her husband after eight 
years' intimate union." And now we stand reverently in 
the holy of holies of Hawthorne's life. How we love a man 
like this, so pure, so gentle, so noble, so true, such a hus- 
band, such a father, such a friend! Great as he was as a 
literary genius, he was greater as a man. Far more fasci- 
nating and beautiful than any of his written romances is 
the true story of the meeting, the marriage, and the twenty- 
two years of sweet and sacred domestic joy of Nathaniel 
Hawthorne and his wife. 

The closing scenes in Hawthorne's life, like his 
romances, present a strange mingling of the painful and 
the beautiful. The events of the closing years at The 
Wayside, the trip southward with his friend, Mr. Ticknor, 
the shock caused by Mr. Ticknor's sudden death, Haw- 
thorne's last journey into the mountains of New Hampshire 
with his schoolmate and dear friend, Franklin Pierce, and 
his quiet unnoticed passing out of this life at Plymouth, 
New Hampshire, in the early morning of the 19th of May — 
a scene too sacred for mortal eyes — all this is tenderly told 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 129 

by Hawthorne's son in Hawthorne a?id His Wife and by 
his friend, James T. Fields, in his Yesterdays with Authors. 
Jnlian Hawthorne writes : ' ' The funeral took place on the 
23d, and was conducted by the Rev. James Freeman 
Clarke, who had performed Hawthorne's marriage service 
two-and-twenty years before. The church was filled with 
a great crowd of people, most of them personal strangers 
to us, though not to Hawthorne's name. It was a mild, 
sunny afternoon, — 'the one bright day in the long week 
of rain,' as Longfellow has said; and the cemetery at 
Sleepy Hollow was full of fragrance and freshness of May. 
The grave was dug at the top of the little hill, beneath a 
group of tall pines, where Hawthorne and his wife had 
often sat in days gone by, and planned their pleasure- 
house. When the rites at the grave were over, the crowd 
moved away, and at. last the carriage containing Mrs. Haw- 
thorne followed. But at the gates of the cemetery stood, 
on either side of the path, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, 
Lowell, Pierce, Emerson, and a half dozen more; and as 
the carriage passed between them, they uncovered their 
honored heads in honor of Hawthorne's widow/' James 
T. Fields says: "We carried Hawthorne through the 
blossoming orchards of Concord, and laid him down, under 
a group of pines, on a hillside, overlooking historic fields. 
. . . Longfellow and Emerson, Channing and Hoar, 
Agassiz and Lowell, Greene and Whipple, Alcott and 
Clarke, Holmes and Hillard, and other friends whom he 
loved, walked slowly by his side. The companion of his 
youth and his manhood, for whom he would willingly, at 
any time, have given up his own life, Franklin Pierce, was 
there among the rest, and scattered flowers into the grave. 
The unfinished Romance, which had cost him so much 



130 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

anxiety, the last literary work on which he had ever been 
engaged, was laid on his coffin." 

Ah ! who shall lift the wand of magic power, 

And the lost clew regain ? 
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 

Unfinished must remain ! 

Longfellow. 



Character and Criticism. — "A tendency to colloquial inelegancies 
and slang and vulgarities of speech is the besetting sin against which 
we, as Americans, have especially to guard and to struggle," says 
Prof. Whitney. And Lowell writes wisely when he says : " Language, 
I suspect, is more apt to be reformed by the charm of some master, 
like Milton, than by any amount of precept." Hawthorne's language 
is truly "English undefiled," and as pellucid as a mountain stream, 
and as pure as the blue sky mirrored in its bosom. Happy the child 
who has been completely captivated by the charm of such a master 
of English! Native and rare genius and the companionship of 
gifted, refined, and gracious womanhood in mother, sisters, and wife, 
together with the purifying and stimulating influences of the 
choicest books and such schoolmates as Longfellow, Pierce, Abbott, 
and Bridge, were the most potent influences in giving to the world 
the lofty-minded, pure-souled, Nathaniel Hawthorne. "It was like 
talking to a woman to converse with Hawthorne, so great was his 
delicacy of mind and gentle sensitiveness," says Longfellow. 



The writings of Hawthorne are marked by subtle imagination, 
conscious power of analysis, and exquisite diction. He studied ex- 
ceptional developments of character, and was fond of exploring 
secret crypts of emotion. His shorter stories are remarkable for 
originality and suggestiveness, and his larger ones are as absolute 



A great book never brings that excitement which springs up from the 
race grounds of our own country or the bull-fights in Spain ; but it brings that 
excitement which comes from beholding the sublime in nature, or from hearing 
the divinest music, or seeing the heroic and the beautiful in the human face. 

Prof. Swing. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 131 

creations as Hamlet or Undine. Lacking the accomplishment of 
verse, he was in the highest sense a poet. His work is pervaded by 
manly personality and by almost feminine delicacy and gentleness. 
. . . He worshiped conscience with his intellectual as well as his 
moral nature ; it is supreme in all he wrote. Besides these mental 
traits, he possessed the literary quality of style — a grace, a charm, a 
perfection of language, which no other American writer ever pos- 
sessed in the same degree, and which places him among the great 
masters ot English prose. — R. H. Stoddard. 

His style is as clear as the running waters are. 

H. W Longfeu,ow. 

A Group of Hawthorne's Friends. — Franklin Pierce, Horatio Bridge, 
S. G. Goodrich ("Peter Parley"), Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, 
Lowell, Sumner, Agassiz, Whipple, Fields, Ticknor, Hillard, Alcott, 
Ellery Channing, Judge Hoar, Herman Melville, W. W. Story, Henry 
Bright, Francis Bennoch, and many other persons of note. 
\ 

References. — Longfellow's poem, Hawthorne ; Hawthorne and 
His Wife, by Julian Hawthorne ; Yesterdays with Authors, by James 
T. Fields ; A Study of Hawthorne, by Geo. P. Lathrop ; Nathaniel 
Hawthorne, by J. R. Lowell in Am. Men of Letters ; Personal Recollec- 
tions of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Horatio Bridge ; Hawthorne, by 
O. W. Holmes, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1864; Nathaniel Hawthorne 
(illustrated), by R. H. Stoddard, Harper's Magazine, Oct., 1872; Na- 
thaniel Hawthorne, by E. P. Whipple, Atlantic Monthly, May, 1860; 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, by George William Curtis, North American 
Review, October, 1864 ; Nathaniel Hawthorne, Littell's Living Age, 
June 17, 1871 ; Concord Days, by A. Bronson Alcott ; The Genius of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Anthony Trollope, North American Re- 
view, Sept., 1879 ; Hawthorne, by Julia Ward Howe, The Critic, 1881 ; 
Riverside Literature Series. 



Great books are the great souls which have left the bodies of great beings 
and have come to talk with us. You have never seen Homer or Virgil or Dante 
or Mrs. Browning, but in their words their souls have come to you in the morn- 
ing and at night. You can live with these illustrious ones and thus possess the 
never-failing sources of a great happiness.— Prof. Swing. 



132 AMERICAN AUTHORS 



Additional Facts. — The little house in which Hawthorne was born still 
stands in Union Street. Nathaniel Hawthorne was a grandson of Capt. Daniel 
Hathorne of Revolutionary fame. The romancer was responsible for the change 
in spelling of the family name. The Hawthorne family, consisting of the mother, 
Elizabeth, Nathaniel, and Louisa went to Raymond, Maine, in 1818. Back to 
Salem in 1820. Hawthorne's first practical help came from S. G. Goodrich of 
" Peter Parley " fame. He published some of Hawthorne's stories in The Token 
and engaged him as editor of The America?i Magazine of Useful Knowledge, 
Hawthorne's first novel, Fanshawe, was brought out anonymously in 1828. For a 
list of Hawthorne's contributions to magazines, see Hawthorne and His Wife, 
Vol. I, page 175. Sophia Peabody had been an invalid for many years when she 
first met young Hawthorne at her father's home in Salem. She regained her 
health before her marriage. The Peabody family moved to Boston before So- 
phia's marriage. Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody were married at the home of 
her father, Dr. Peabody, No. 13 West Street, Boston, on July 9, 1842. From 1837 to 
1839 Hawthorne was weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House, having 
been appointed by Bancroft, the historian. In 1841 he tried Brook Farm. Eliza- 
beth Peabody, the noted kindergarten teacher and writer, and Mary Mann, wife 
of Horace Mann, were Mrs. Hawthorne's sisters. Hawthorne's True Stories and 
Twice-Told Tales were written at Salem before his marriage. Mosses from an 
Old Manse mostly at the Old Manse in Concord. The Scarlet Letter at Salem, 
The House of the Seven Gables and the Wonder-Book at Lenox, The Blithedale Ro- 
mance at West Newton near West Roxbury of Brook Farm fame, Tanglewood Tales, 
Life of Pierce, Our Old Home, and all his latest works were written at The Way- 
side in Concord, except The Marble Faun, which was written in England. Haw- 
thorne was appointed Consul to Liverpool in 1853 by his old college "chum" 
President Pierce. Our Old Home was dedicated to Pierce. While in England 
Hawthorne lived at Rock Ferry on the Mersey, about two miles from Liverpool. 
Of Hawthorne's three children, Una was born in the Old Manse, Julian, in Bos- 
ton, and Rose, at Lenox. Julian Hawthorne and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (wife 
of the author G P. Lathrop) are well-known writers. Mrs. Hawthorne and Una 
both died in London, England ; Mrs. Hawthorne in Feb., 1871. and Una in the 
summer of 1877. Their graves are side by side in Kensal Green Cemetery, Lon- 
don. Hawthorne bought The Wayside of A. Bronson Alcott in 1852. Lived there 
from his return from England in 1860 until his death. Hawthorne died at Plym- 
outh, N. H., May 19, 1864. His body was brought to Concord and placed in the 
Unitarian Church on the 21st, and the coffin was decorated with flowers by Mrs. 
Hawthorne and her daughters. The Hawthorne lot in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery 
is surrounded by an arbor vitse hedge. A simple headstone with the one word 
"Hawthorne," marks his grave. The lot also contains the graves of two of his 
grand-children, Gladys Hawthorne and Francis Hawthorne Lathrop. 

Principal Writings.— Fanshawe, 1828; Twice-Told Tales, 1837 ; Bio- 
graphical Stories for Children, 1842; Mosses from an Old Manse, 
1846; The Scarlet Letter, 1850; True Stories, 1851; The House of 
Seven Gables, 1851; The Wonder-Book, 1851; The Blithedale Ro- 
mance, 1852; Tanglewood Tales, 1853; The Marble Faun, 1860; Our 
Old Home, 1863; American Note-Books, 1868; English Note-Books, 
1870 ; French and Italian Note-Books, 1871 ; Septimius Felton, 1871 ; 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 133 

The Dolliver Romance, 1876; Dr. Grimshawe's Secret, 1883. Auth- 
orized and complete editions of Hawthorne's works, published by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Popular Edition, 8 vols., $12; Riverside 
Edition, 13 vols., $26. 

Selections from Mosses from an Old Manse : 

Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons assimilate 
only what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstances which 
supply good and beautiful results — the fragrance of celestial flowers 
— to the daily life of others. 

Sweet must have been the springtime of Eden, when no earlier 
year had strewn its decay upon the virgin turf and no former expe- 
rience had ripened into summer and faded into autumn in the hearts 
of its inhabitants! 

On the soil of thought and in the garden of the heart, as well 
as in the sensual world, lie withered leaves, — the ideas and feelings 
that we have done with. 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Lowell, Alcott, Longfellow and 
Stoddard say of Hawthorne and his writings? Tell about Haw- 
thorne's childhood and Salem, where he was born. What noted 
persons were his college mates at Bowdoin ? Have you read the 
Twice-Told Tales, The Wonder-Book, Tanglewood Tales, and Mosses 
from an Old Manse? Tell about the Old Manse at Concord and 
Hawthorne's life there. What do Prof. Whitney and Lowell say 
about language? Name Hawthorne's friends. Read Longfellow's 
poem, Hawthorne. Name Hawthorne's principal writings. Tell 
about the following characters in Hawthorne's works: Miriam, Judge 
Pyncheon, Hester Prynne, Zenobia, Septimius Felton, Dr. Grim- 
shawe, Dr. Dolliver, Hilda, Matthew Maule, Pearl, Priscilla, Rose, 
Kenyon, Hepzibah, Arthur Dimmesdale, Miles Coverdale, Sibyl, 
Donatello, Clifford, Roger Chillingworth, Robert Hagburn, Phoebe, 
and Holgrave. Quote what Prof. Swing says about "great books." 



HENRY D. THOREAU 



(1817-1862) 



Modest and mild and kind, 
Who never spurned the needing from thy door— 
(Door of thy heart, which is a palace-gate) ; 
Temperate and faithful,— in whose word the world 
Might trust, sure to repay, unvexed by care, 
Unawed by Fortune's nod, slave to no lord, 
Nor coward to thy peers,— long shalt thou live! 

Ellery Channing. 

There is something highly stimulating to the sterner 
virtues as well as very refreshing to one's nobler aspirations 
in the simplicity and sincerity of this rare and rugged child 
of Nature, Henry D. Thoreau. At the early age of seven- 
teen he writes : ' ' There appears 
to be something noble, some- 
thing exalted, in giving up one's 
own interest for that of his fel- 
low beings. He is a true patriot, 
who, casting aside all selfish 
thoughts, and not suffering his 
benevolent intentions to be pol- 
luted by thinking of the fame he 
is acquiring, presses forward in 
the great work he has under- 
dertaken, with unremitting zeal. 
. . . He is worthy of all praise; 
his is indeed, true greatness." 
These words were written the 
very year that Emerson, who had lately returned from his 
first tour in Europe, came to Concord to live with his 
mother in the Old Manse. Evidently young Thoreau had 
felt the uplifting power of Wordsworth's ' ' plain living and 
high thinking", and with his imagination exploring the 
mountain-tops and occasionally making excursions to the 




HENRY D. THOREAU 



HENRY D. THOREAU 135 

stars, he had already moved up, and was beginning to live 
on life's lofty table-lands. 

To know Henry D. Thoreau sympathetically and to 
love him as we do an inspiring poem, one must read Wal- 
den, Week, Familiar Letters, and such essays as Love, 
Chastity, Friendship, Higher Laws, Life Without Principle , 
and Civil Disobedience, — not forgetting those stirring and 
stinging addresses, A Plea for Captain Jo h?i Brown and The 
Last Days of John Brown. 

In his essay, Civil Disobedience, in which he gives an 
able criticism on Webster, Thoreau says : ' ' Any man more 
right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one 
already." And again :n "Under a government which im- 
prisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also 
in prison." 

Refusing to pay his tax, which went to support slavery 
in South Carolina, Thoreau was arrested, and spent a night 
in Concord jail. His friend and neighbor, Emerson, came 
to the cell and said, "Henry, why are you here?" He re- 
plied, "Why are you not here?" 

About a mile south of Concord village is the now fa- 
mous Walden Lake, on the shore of which Thoreau built a 
hut and lived here in the woods from July, 1845, to autumn, 
1847. Here he spent his days and nights with Nature, and 
out of these experiences wrote his most popular book, 
Walden, in which he says: "I went to the woods because I 
wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts 
of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, 
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." 
A. Bronson Alcott writes in his journal for March 16, 1847: 
"This evening I pass with Thoreau at his hermitage on 
Walden, and he reads me some passages from his manuscript 
volume, entitled A Week on the Concord and Merrimac 
Rivers. The book is purely American, fragrant with the 



136 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

life of New England woods and streams, and could have 
been written nowhere else. Especially am I touched by his 
sufficiency and soundness, his aboriginal vigor, — as if a 
man had once more come into Nature who knew what 
Nature meant him to do with her, — Virgil, and White of 
Selbourne, and Izaak Walton, and Yankee settler all in one. 
I came home at midnight through the woody snow-paths, 
and slept with the pleasing dream that presently the press 
would give me two books to be proud of — Emerson's 
Poems and Thoreau's Week" As Thoreau was both a 
poet and a naturalist, Ellery Channing, who was one of his 
most intimate friends for more than twenty years, aptly 
called him the "poet-naturalist". Some of his best poems 
are Sympathy, The Fisher's Boy, Smoke, Mountains, and 
Inspiration. The following stanza from Inspiration is fre- 
quently quoted : 

" I will not doubt the love untold 
Which not my worth nor want hath bought, 
Which wooed me young and wooes me old, 
And to this evening hath me brought." 

Thoreau's writings abound in noble thoughts clothed 
in simple and beautiful language. Even his letters to his 
friends are lofty in tone, full of fine thoughts and fancies, 
and breathe the freshness of Walden woods. Besides his 
affectionate letters to his mother and sisters, his letters to 
his dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson, in whose home he 
had lived a } r ear or more at a time, show us the beauty of 
his character. 

Should we search the literature of the world, it would 
be difficult to find a more tender and beautiful tribute to 
noble womanhood than is contained in the following ex- 



Sorae circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in 
the milk.— Thoreau. 



HENRY D. THOREAU 137 

tracts from one of his letters to Mrs. Emerson: "I am 
almost afraid to look at your letter. I see that it will 
make my life very steep, but it may lead to fairer prospects 
than this. You seem to me to speak out of a very clear 
and high heaven, where any one may be who stands so 
high. Your voice seems not a voice, but comes as much 
from the blue heavens as from the paper. My dear friend, 
it was very noble in you to write me so trustful an answer. 
It will do as well for another world as for this ; such a voice 
is for no particular time nor person, but it makes him who 
may hear it stand for all that is lofty and true in humanity. 
The thought of you will constantly elevate my life ; it will 
be something always above the horizon to behold, as when 
I look up at the evening star. . . . What wealth is it to 
have such friends that we cannot think of them without 
elevation ! And we can think of them any time and any 
where, and it costs nothing but the lofty disposition. I 
cannot tell you the joy your letter gives me, which will not 
quite cease till the latest time. Let me accompany your 
finest thought." 

A few days after his death his sister Sophia wrote in a 
letter to a friend: " Profound joy mingles with my grief. 
I feel as if something very beautiful had happened, — not 
•death. Although Henry is with us no longer, yet the 
memory of his sweet and virtuous soul must ever cheer and 
comfort me. My heart is filled with praise to God for the 
gift of such a brother, and may I never distrust the love 
and wisdom of Him who made him, and has now called 
him to labor in more glorious fields than earth affords!" 

On the 6th of May, 1862, when our country was filled 
with the tumult of war, this gentle child of Nature jour- 
ne}^ed to the land of perpetual peace. At his funeral in 
the parish church, Emerson spoke tender and fitting words 
in praise of his departed friend, and the earthly form of 



138 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Henry D. Thoreau was carried by loving hands and laid to 
rest on the hillside in Sleepy Hollow. Many years have 
come and gone since then, but as we now walk in Walden 
woods and carry a stone from the shore of the lake he so 
loved, and place it on the cairn of stones on the spot where 
he lived with Nature, and then pass through Concord vil- 
lage where he was born, lived all his earthly life, and 
where he died, and stand reverently by his grave on Con- 
cord's classic heights, we, too, say as did one of his early 
friends as she stood here by his grave many years ago: 
"Concord is Henry's monument, covered with suitable 
inscriptions by his own hand." And memory recalls some 
tender lines written by another friend and neighbor whose 
grave is only a few steps away, and whose name is a house- 
hold word in both Europe and America: 

Haunting the hills, the stream, the wild, 

Swallow and aster, lake and pine, 

To him grew human or divine, — 
Fit mates for this large-hearted child. 
Such homage Nature ne'er forgets, 

And yearly on the coverlid 

'Neath which her darling lieth hid 
Will write his name in violets. 

Louisa M. Ai^cott : Thoreau 's Flute. 



Character and Criticism. — The high moral impulse never de- 
serted him, and he resolved early to read no book, take no walk, un- 
dertake no enterprise, but such as he could endure to give an ac- 
count to himself. . . . Truth before all things ; in all your 
thoughts, your faintest breath, the austerest purity, the utmost fulfill- 
ing of the interior law. — Eivi^ERY Channing. 

Thoreau's strength was in his moral nature, and his obstinate re- 
fusal to mortgage himself, his time, or his opinions, even to the State 
or Church. The haughtiness of his independence kept him from a 
thousand temptations that beset men of less courage and self-denial. 

Frank B. Sanborn. 



HENRY D. THOREAU 139' 

He talks about Nature just as if she had been born and brought 
up in Concord. — Mrs. Samuel Hoar. 

His aim was a noble and useful one, in the direction of plain 
living and high thinking. . . . His whole life was a rebuke of the 
waste and aimlessness of our American luxury, which is an abject en- 
slavement to tawdry upholstery. . . We have said that his range 
was narrow, but to be a master is to be a master. He had caught his 
English at its living source, among the poets and prose-writers of its 
best days. — JamES RuSSEEE LowELE. 

A truth speaker he. . . . His soul was made for the noblest 
society ; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this 
world ; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, where- 
ever there is beauty, he will find a home. 

Emerson : Funeral Address. 

A Group of Thoreau's Friends. — Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott, El- 
lery Channing, Frank B. Sanborn, Horace Greely, and Walt Whit- 
man. 

Additional Facts. — Born in Concord, July 12, 1817. Graduated at Harvard in 
1837. His father was poor in worldly goods. Henry taught school, lectured, 
wrote, was surveyor, engineer, carpenter, and pencil-maker. He never married. 
He was affectionate and kind, very fond of mother and sisters. He was very sim- 
ple in his habits — " fronted only the essential facts of life." Except a few months 
spent in New York City, and a trip West the year before his death, he did not go 
beyond New England. " I have traveled extensively in Concord," he says. He 
was an Abolitionist, a personal friend of John Brown. Sanborn says of Thoreau : 
'' In 1857 I introduced John Brown to him, then a guest at my house ; and in 1859, 
the evening before Brown's last birthday, we listened together to the old Cap- 
tain's last speech in the Concord Town Hall." Thoreau contributed to The Dial, 
Democratic Review, Graham's, Putnam's, Atlantic Monthly, and N Y. Tribune. 
His grave in Sleepy Hollow is on the same hillside as the graves of Hawthorne, 
Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, and Eouisa M. Alcott. The poem, Thoreau' s Flute, 
was written by Miss Alcott in 1863 while she was nurse in the army hospital. 

References. — Poem, Thoreau' s Flute, by Louisa M. Alcott; Fa- 
miliar Letters of Thoreau and Henry D. Thoreau in American Men 
of Letters, by F. B. Sanborn ; Thoreau : The Poet-Naturalist, by El- 
lery Channing ; Thoreau : His Life and Aims, by H. A. Page ; Mem- 
ories of Thoreau, by R. W, Emerson, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1862; 
and Lowell's Essay, Thoreau. 

Principal Writings. — ^ Week on the Concord and Merrimac Riv- 
^,1849; Walden, 1854; Excursions, 1863; The Maine Woods, 1864; 



140 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Cape Cod, 1865; Letters, 1865; A Yankee in Canada, 1866; Early 
Spring in Massachusetts, 1881; Summer, 1884; Winter, 1887; Au- 
tumn, 1892; Miscellanies in which are his essays, Civil Disobedience, 
Life Without Principle, Thomas Carlyle, and the three addresses on 
John Brown. Complete edition of Thoreau's works pub. by Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co. (11 Vols. $16.50). Also selections in Riverside Ut 
Series. 

Selections for Memorizing. 

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can 
be preserved only by the most delicate handling. — Walden. 

The smallest seed of faith is of more worth than the largest 
fruit of happiness. — Familiar Letters. 

What a pity if we do not live this short time according to the 
laws of the long time, — the eternal laws! Let us see that we stand 
erect here, and do not lie along by our whole length in the dirt. 

Familiar Letters. 

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own 
flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a 
man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. — Walden. 

Our thoughts are the epochs in our lives : all else is but as a 
journal of the winds that blew while we werehere. — Familiar Letters. 

Find the following quotations in the writings of Henry 
D. Thoreau: 

1. How prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our 
bodies; how slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls! 

2. What exercise is to the bod}-, employment is to the mind 
and morals. 

3. O how I laugh when I think of my vague, indefinite riches. 
No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but 
enjoyment. 

4. Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to 
make men of themselves. 

5. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all 
the monkeys in America do the same. 



HENRY D. THOREAU 141 

6. Time is but the stream I go a fishing in. I drink at it ; but 
while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. 
Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink 
deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. 

7. Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have 
friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. 

8. Why should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to 
ask a neighbor's advice? There is a nearer neighbor within us, 
incessantly telling us how we should behave. But we wait for the 
neighbor without to tell us of some false, easier way. 

9. It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to 
soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner and thin- 
ner till there is none at all. 

10. But what a battle a man must fight everywhere to main- 
tain his standing army of thoughts, and march with them in ord- 
erly array through the always hostile country! 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Ellery Channing, Sanborn, 
Lowell, Emerson, and Mrs. Hoar say of Thoreau and his writings? 
What does Thoreau say about " a true patriot," " a majority of one," 
" a just man " ? Tell about his refusing to pay his tax. Give his 
reasons why he "went to the woods." What does he say about 
" wealth " in his letter to Mrs. Emerson ? Where did Thoreau say he 
had " traveled extensively " ? Tell about Walden lake and the "cairn 
of stones." Have you read Walden ? Tell about Thoreau's friends 
and neighbors. Quote some fine thoughts from Thoreau's writings. 
What does he say about "circumstantial evidence?" 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 



Poe and Hawthorne are the last of the romancers. 

was a master in his 



(1809-1849) 

This vivid writing— this power which is felt— lias produced a sensation 
liere in England. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it. and some 
"by the music. . . . The certain thing about it is the power of the writer. 

Mrs. Browning. 

Woman was to him the impersonation of celestial beauty, her influence 
soothed and elevated him, and in her presence he was gentle, winning, and 
subdued. There is not an unchaste suggestion in the whole course of his 
writings,— a remarkable fact, in view of his acquaintance with the various 
schools of French literature.— E- C. Stedman. 

America has given to the world at least two literary 
geniuses, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe. 
Comparing Poe and Hawthorne, Stedman says in part: 

Each 
way, and 
that of Poe was more obvious 
and material. He was expert in 
much that concerns the structure 
of works, and the modeling 
touches of the poet left beauty- 
marks upon his prose. Yet in 
spiritual meaning his tales were 
less poetic than those of Haw- 
thorne. ... It was Hawthorne 
who heard the melodies too fine 
for mortal ear. Hawthorne 
was wholly masculine with the 
great tenderness and gentleness 
that belong to virile souls. Poe 
had, with the delicacy, the sophistry and weakness of a 
nature more or less effeminate. He opposed to Hawthorne 
the fire, the richness, the instability of the tropics, as 
against the abiding strength and passion of the North." 
Some of Poe's best prose tales and sketches are Ligeia, 
The Fall of the House of Usher, William Wilson, Landofs 




EDGAR ALLAN POE 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 143 

Cottage, The Gold- Bug, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, 
The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Purloined Letter. The Pur- 
loi?ied Letter, fascinating and refined, was the beginning of 
detective stories. "How are the mighty fallen" since the 
days of Poe! The detective story of to-day is usually a 
synonym for coarseness and brutality. 

Some of Poe's best poems are The Raven, The Bells, 
The Sleeper, The Haunted Palace, The City in the Sea, To 
Helen, For Annie, Israfel, Ulalume, and Annabel Lee. As 
the author of The Raven, The Bells, a?id Annabel Lee, 
Poe's place among the leading American poets is secure. 
" Lenore", "Nevermore," "the bells, bells, bells," will 
echo far into the distant future, and Annabel Lee, that 
"tuneful dirge", written in memory of his " sweet Vir- 
ginia", the invalid wife whom he adored and over whom he 
watched with such pathetic tenderness, can not be 'for- 
gotten. Even now the closing lines are playing sweet, sad 
music in our hearts : 

" And neither the angels in heaven above, 
Nor the demons down under the sea, 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 
Of the beautiful Annabel LEE : 

" For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 

Of the beautiful Annabee LEE : 
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabee LEE ; 
And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 

Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride 

In the sepulcher there by the sea, 

In her tomb by the sounding sea." 



David Poe, son of General Poe of Maryland, a well- 
born but dissolute young man, married the beautiful Eliza- 
beth Arnold, an English actress, and adopted her profes- 



144 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

sion, — taking up a life that was strolling, homeless, and 
half-despised. Of the three unwelcome little wanderers 
that were the fruit of this marriage, the subject of this 
sketch, Edgar Allan Poe, was the second, and was born in 
Boston, Mass., January 19, 1809. In 1811, when Edgar 
was only two years old, the following pathetic card was 
published in the Richmond papers: " To the Humane : On 
this night Mrs. Poe, lingering on the bed of disease and 
surrounded by her children, asks your assistance; and asks 
it, perhaps for the last time." And it was the last time. 
The good ladies of Richmond hastened to the aid of their 
unfortunate sister, but death also came quickly to the relief 
of these wretched devotees of the stage, and the parents of 
Edgar Allen Poe both in the same week were carried by 
strangers to their last resting-place. The beautiful and 
amiable Elizabeth Arnold, a child of the stage by birth, no 
home, no happy childhood with playmates at home and at 
school, no days of careless pleasure, no tender motherly 
care as she passed from childhood into young womanhood, 
a half-fed, homeless wife and a destitute mother when she 
should have been enjoying a happy girlhood, and finally dy- 
ing in poverty and destitution, and among strangers — oh, 
the pity of it! And yet from this poor, homeless, and of- 
ten sad-hearted variety actress of the olden time her gifted 
son inherited some of his noblest traits of character. 

Through the earnest solicitation of his wife, the wealthy 
Mr. Allan, after whom the boy was named, adopted Edgar 
as his own child. As the boy was both beautiful and 
precocious, the Allans, like many other unwise parents, 
gratified their own selfish pride by showing him off on all 
sorts of occasions. Instead of the steady, kind, firm reign 
of wise parental government, this bright boy ran loose, 
guided by his own childish fancies and caprices. When 
child-nature asked for the bread of true affection and pa- 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 145 

rental care, they gave it careless neglect and self-indulgence; 
when it asked for the fish of self-denial and noble aspiration, 
they gave it the subtle serpent of foolish pride and self- 
gratification. 

In one of his best stories, William Wilson, Poe says : 
' ' I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and 
easily excitable temperament has at all times rendered them 
remarkable; and in my infancy I gave evidence of having 
fully inherited the family character. As I advanced in 
years it was more strongly developed, becoming for many 
reasons a cause of serious disquietude to my friends, and of 
positive injury to myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to 
the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable 
passions. Weak-minded, and beset with constitutional in- 
firmities akin to my own, my parents could do but little to 
check the evil propensities which distinguished me." For- 
tunately for Edgar when he was seven years old the Allans 
took him with them on a tour through England and Scot- 
land, and then left him at the Manor-House School, in 
Church street, Stoke-Newington. In this dreamy old town, 
young Poe spent five of the happiest years of his life. He 
writes : ' ' My earliest recollections of a school-life are con- 
nected with a large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a 
misty-looking village of England, where were a vast num- 
ber of gigantic and gnarled trees, and where all the houses 
were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a dream-like 
and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At this 
moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its 
deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thou- 
sand shrubberies, and thrill anew with indefinable delight at 
the deep hollow note of the church-bell, breaking each hour 
with a sullen and sudden roar upon the stillness of the 
dusky atmosphere in which the fretted Gothic steeple lay 
imbedded and asleep." 



146 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Returning from England in 1821, he spent some time 
in an academy at Richmond and was then sent to the 
University of Virginia at Charlottesville. In the tale of The 
Black Cat, Poe says : ' ' My tenderness of heart was even 
so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. 
I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my 
parents with a great variety of pets." The following inci- 
dent told by Mrs. Whitman, happened when Poe was a boy 
of thirteen or fourteen years, a student in the academy: 
' ' He one day accompanied a schoolmate to his home where 
he saw for the first time Mrs. Helen Stannard, the mother 
of his young friend. This lady, on entering the room, took 
his hand and spoke gentle and gracious words of welcome 
which so penetrated the sensitive heart of the orphan boy 
as to deprive him of the power of speech and, for a time, 
almost of consciousness itself. He returned home in a 
dream, with but one thought, one hope in life — to hear 
again the sweet and gracious words that had made the 
desolate world so beautiful to him, and filled his lonely 
heart with the oppression of a new joy. This lady after- 
wards became the confident of all his boyish sorrows, and 
hers was the one redeeming influence that saved and 
guided him in these earlier days of his turbulent and 
passionate youth." But, alas for this unfortunate lad, his 
revered friend was herself overwhelmed by fearful sorrows, 
and just when he most needed her guiding voice, it was 
suddenly stilled, by death. Poe grieved as only such a 
sensitive being can grieve. For months he made nightly 
visits to her grave, and "when the nights were very dreary 
and cold, when the autumnal rains fell, and the wind wailed 
mournfully over the graves, he lingered longest and came 
away most regretfully." All the thoughts and fancies of 
his after life were tinged by the memory of this unfortunate 
lady, who was to him the paragon of womanhood; and his 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 147 

soul from out that shadow was lifted — nevermore. In her 
memory Poe wrote that beautiful poem, Lenore, and the 
tender lyric, To Heleri, beginning, "Helen, thy beauty is 
to me." 

The later years of Poe's pathetic life are familiar. His 
experience as a cadet at West Point, his quarrels with his 
god-father, Mr. Allan, his marriage to his beautiful cousin, 
Virginia Clem, his struggles with poverty, his connection 
with the leading magazines of that day, his devotion to his 
invalid wife, and the sad scenes as she lay dying in the 
little cottage at Fordham, his discouragement and dissipa- 
tion after her death, and finally his own tragic death, are 
all sympathetically told in Mr. Ingram's Memoir of Edgar 
Allan Poe and Mrs. Whitman's Edgar Poe and His Critics. 

Far from the blooming field and fragrant wood 
The shining songster of the summer sky, 

O'er ocean's black and frightful solitude, 
Driven on broken wing, must sink and die. 1 

Wiujam Winter. 



Character and Criticism.— One who knew Poe well in his later 
years, says : " Everything about him distinguished him as a man of 
mark; his countenance, person, and gait, were alike characteristic. 
His features were regular and decidedly handsome. His complexion 
was clear and dark; the color of his fine eyes seemingly a dark gray, 
but upon closer inspection they were seen to be of that neutral violet 
tint which is so difficult to define. His forehead was, without ex- 
ception, the finest in proportion and expression that we have ever 
seen." 

Mrs. Osgood, the poetess, says : "It was in his own simple yet 
poetical home that to me the character of Edgar Poe appeared in its 
most beautiful light. Playful, affectionate, witty, alternately docile 
and wayward as a petted child — for his young, gentle, and idolized 
wife, and for all who came, he had, even in the midst of his most 



l Poem read at the Dedication of the Actors' Monument to Poe, May 4, 1885. 



148 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

harassing literary duties, a kind word, a pleasant smile, a graceful 
and courteous attention. ... I have never seen him otherwise 
than gentle, generous, well-bred, and fastidiously refined. To a 
sensitive and delicately-nurtured woman there was a peculiar and 
irresistible charm in the chivalric, graceful, and almost tender 
reverence with which he invariably approached all women who won 
his respect." 

The malicious attacks upon this unfortunate genius after his 
death served only to increase his fame. The thorns Griswold planted 
on poor Poe's grave were changed into laurels by the noble defense 
of such distinguished friends as N. P. Willis, John Kennedy, Mrs. 
Whitman, and Mrs. Osgood. One who can admire such geniuses 
as Goethe, Byron, and Burns, without being haunted by the spirits 
of the broken-hearted women whose lives they blighted, can cer- 
tainly forgive Poe's sins against himself, and remember with delight 
his purit}' of thought and life, his tender devotion to his invalid 
wife, and his life-long reverence for womanhood. 

Additional Facts.— Poe's grandfather, David Poe, was a resident of Balti- 
more, and was quartermaster-general in the Continental army. He adopted 
Edgar's brother "William, but Rosalie, the baby at the time of the mother's 
death, was adopted by a citizen of Richmond. Poe's wife was only fourteen 
years old at the time of her marriage. Poe's affection for Virginia's mother, 
Mrs. Clem, is tenderly expressed in the poem, To My Mother. Of his two 
cryptogram poems, A Valentine was addressed to Mrs. Osgood, the poetess, and 
An Enigma, to Mrs. I^ewis of New York, who was very kind to Poe's wife in her 
last illness. To translate these poems, read the first letter of the first line, the 
second letter of the second line, and so on. The poem, To Helen, beginning, " I 
saw thee once," was written for Mrs. Whitman, who was conditionally engaged 
to Poe after his wife's death. She wrote Edgar Poe and His Critics in reply to 
Griswold's malicious attack upon the dead poet. Poe's wife died in the cottage 
at Fordham in January, 1847. " She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her hus- 
band's great coat, with a large tortoise-shell eat in her bosom. The wonderful 
cat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were the 
sufferer's onl}' means of warmth, except as her husband held her hands, and her 
mother her feet." His poems, Ulalume and Annabel Lee, were written in mem- 
ory of his lost "Virginia." Sorrow for his wife, discouragement, and overwork 
drove Poe to the use of stimulants. The cause of his death, however, is uncer- 
tain. In October, 1849, he was found on the streets of Baltimore in a half- 
conscious condition, and was taken to a hospital, where he died October 7, 1849. 
For a long time his grave was neglected. It is now marked by an appropriate 
monument erected by the actors, and dedicated May 4, 1885. The Poe cottage at 
Fordham, near New York City, is still standing, and is to be kept as a memorial 
to the dead poet. 

References.— William Winter's poem read at the Dedication of 
the Actors' Monument to Poe, May 4, 1885 ; Woodberry's Edgar 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 149 

Allan Poe in Am. Men of Letters Series ; Poets of America, by E. C. 
Stedman; Mrs. Griswold's Home Life of Great Authors; J. H. In- 
gram's Memoir of Poe ; Mrs. Whitman's Edgar Poe and His Critics; 
Edgar Allan Poe, by J. R. Lowell, in Graham's Magazine, February, 
1845. Complete edition of Poe's works published by Stone & Kim- 
hall, Chicago ( 10 vols ). 

We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception 
of what the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple 
elements which induce in the Poet himself the true poetical effect. 
He recognizes the ambrosia which nourishes his soul, in the bright 
orbs that shine in Heaven — in the volutes of the flower — in the 
clustering of low shrubberies — in the waving of the grain-fields — 
in the slanting of tall, Eastern trees — in the blue distance of mount- 
ains — in the grouping of clouds — in the twinkling of half-hidden 
brooks — in the gleaming of silver rivers — in the repose of seques- 
tered lakes — in the star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He per- 
ceives it in the songs of birds — in the harp of iEolus — -in the sigh- 
ing of the night-wind — in the repining voice of the forest — in the 
surf that complains to the shore — in the fresh breath of the woods 
— in the scent of the violet — in the voluptuous perfume of the hya- 
cinth — in the suggestive odor that comes to him at eventide, from 
far-distant, undiscovered islands, over dim oceans, illimitable and 
unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts — in all unworldly 
motives — in all holy impulses — in all chivalrous, generous, and self- 
sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman — in the grace 
of her step — in the lustre of her eye — in the melody of her voice — 
in her soft laughter — in her sigh — in the harmony of the rustling 
of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments — in 
her burning enthusiasms — an her gentle charities — in her meek and 
devotional endurances — but above all — ah, far above all — he kneels 
to it — he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in 
the altogether divine majesty of her love. 

Poe's lecture, The Poetic Principle. 



Literary Gleaning. — What do Mrs. Browning, Stedman, and 
Mrs. Osgood say of Poe and his writings ? Name some of his best 
poems and his best prose tales. Give a brief sketch of Poe's life. 
What does he say of his " school-life " in England ? Tell about Mrs. 
Stannard and "Lenore." Tell about Poe's cryptogram poems. 
Quote Mr. Winter's lines about Poe. 



BAYARD TAYLOR 

(1825-1878) 

Here too, of answering love secure, 

Have I not welcomed to my hearth 
The gentle pilgrim troubadour, 

"Whose songs have girdled half the earth ; 
Whose pages, like the magic mat 
Whereon the Eastern lover sat, 
Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple vines, 
And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygia's mountain pines! 

Whittier : The Last Walk in Autumn. 

We can not say with Whittier, 

" Have I not welcomed to my hearth 
The gentle pilgrim troubadour," 

but we may say with him, 

" He brought us wonders of the new and old ; 
We shared all climes with him." 

For have we not followed this "poet-traveler," in his 
Views Afoot, from his quiet Pennsylvania home, across the 
Atlantic, spent a day in Ireland, visited Scotland, stood on 
the banks of " Bonnie Doon", climbed the Trosachs and 
looked down on Loch Katrine and Ellen's Isle, walked on 
the banks of the beautiful Neckar and around classic old 
Heidelberg, wandered along the castled Rhine and the 
Danube, studied the famous works of art in Dresden and 
Vienna, crossed the Alps into Italy, visited Milan and the 
galleries of Florence, stood on old Tiber's banks, and walked 
the streets of the "eternal city," even Rome itself? Have 
we not with Bayard Taylor seen the moonlight streaming 
through the broken arches of the Coliseum, where, in its 
palmy days, more than a hundred thousand Romans were 
wont to sit down to their barbarous entertainments? A 
dozen books of travel, five novels, three dramas, several 



BAYARD TAYLOR 



151 



volumes of poems, and numerous miscellanies came from 
the fertile brain and facile pen of Bayard Taylor. The 

Story of Kennett is his best novel. 
In dedicating it to his friends and 
neighbors of Kennett, he says: 
"I wish to dedicate this story to 
you, not only because some of you 
inhabit the very houses, and till 
the very fields which I have given 
to the actors in it, but also because 
many of you will recognize certain 
of the latter, and are therefore able 
to judge whether they are drawn 



with the simple truth at which I 




BAYARD TAYLOR 



have aimed. ... In these days, 
when Fiction prefers to deal with 
abnormal characters and psychological problems more or less 
exceptional or morbid, the attempt to represent the ele- 
ments of life in a simple, healthy, pastoral community, has 
been to me a source of uninterrupted enjoyment. May 
you read it with half the interest I have felt in writing it! " 
It is always a delight to remember such types of noble 
manhood and womanhood as Gilbert Potter and Martha 
Deane, and we do not willingly forget the many noble senti- 
ments found in this story such as the following in the de- 
scription of "the raising": "There could be no finer sight 
than that of these lithe, vigorous specimens of a free, un- 
corrupted manhood, taking like sport the rude labor which 
was at once their destiny and their guard of safety against 
the assaults of the senses." 

Among Bayard Taylor's best poems are Lars, Hylas, 
Amran's Wooing, The So?ig of the Camp, The Natio?ial 
Ode, Euphorion, Bedouin Song, together with such tender 
lyrics as Mar ah, The Voice of the Tempter, The Last May, 



152 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

and Churchyard Roses, which breathe his love and sorrow 
for his lost Mary Agnew, and finally his last poem, the 
r drama, Prince Deukalion, of which Longfellow writes: 

" Poet ! thou, whose latest verse 
Was a garland on thy hearse ; 

Thou hast sung, with organ tone, 
In Deukalion's life, thine own." 

The thrilling lines of The Song of the Camp can not 
be forgotten: 

" They sang of love, and not of fame ; 
Forgot was Britain's glory: 
Each heart recalled a different name, 
But all sang 'Annie Lawrie.' 

" Voice after voice caught up the song, 
Until its tender passion 
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, — 
Their battle-eve confession. 

" Dear girl, her name he dared not speak 
But, as the song grew louder, 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 
Washed off the stains of powder." 

After describing the awful battle, the "scream of shot, 
and burst of shell," until one's imagination pictures the 
battlefield sowed thick with mangled and bloody bodies of 
Britain's soldier boys who last night "sang of love, and not 
of fame," he closes with these tender and undying lines: 

" And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 
For a singer, dumb and gory; 
And English Mary mourns for him 
Who sang of ' Annie Lawrie.' 

" Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest 
Your truth and valor wearing: 
The bravest are the tenderest, — 
The loving are the daring." 



BAYARD TAYLOR 153 

Fortunate in his Quaker parentage, with a father of 
rugged character and a mother who quickly discerned the 
.genius of her boy and encouraged him in his early efforts in 
drawing and verse, Bayard Taylor was also fortunate in his 
first teachers. His pious Quaker teacher, Samuel Martin, 
was a lover of nature, and took Bayard with him in his 
rambles in field and forest in search of treasures in rock, 
tree, and flower. Another teacher, Ruth Ann Chambers, 
taught this bright boy to love poetry and to memorize the 
finest passages. As we stand where the old log school 
house then stood, we are reminded that it was in this same 
primitive schoolroom, and to this very teacher that little 
Mary Agnew, blushing, whispered, "May I sit beside Bay- 
ard?" After he had become famous, Bayard Taylor, in a 
letter to this teacher, said: "I have never forgotten the 
days spent in the little log schoolhouse and the chestnut 
grove behind it, and I have always thought that some of the 
poetry I then copied from thy manuscript books has kept 
an influence over all my life. There was one verse in par- 
ticular which has cheered and encouraged me a thousand 
times when prospects .seemed rather gloomy. It ran thus : 

' O, why should we seek to anticipate sorrow 
By throwing the flowers of the present away, 
And gathering the dark-rolling cloudy to-morrow 
To darken the generous sun of to-day ! ' 

Thou seest that I have good reason to remember those old 
times, and to be grateful to thee for encouraging instead of 
checking the first developments of my mind." 

The story of Bayard Taylor's life — his childhood and 
schooldays, his letters to Mary Agnew and her beautiful 
and tender replies, her untimely death, his journeys in other 
lands, experiences as a lecturer, building Cedarcroft, civic 
honors placed on his brow, his death in a foreign land, his 
body brought back to his childhood home and buried beside 



154 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

the grave of the little girl who sat "beside Bayard' 7 in the 
little log schoolhouse — all this and more is tenderly told in 
Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, edited by his widow 
Marie Hansen-Taylor, and Horace E. Scudder. Bayard 
Taylor, journalist, poet, traveler, lecturer, novelist, and dip- 
lomat, whose life story reads like a romance, was a marvel 
of courage, will-power, and capacity for hard and incessant 
work. In the midst of intense life death touched him, and 
his last words were: "I want, you know what I mean, 
that stuff of life L" 

O Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft, 

Green as thy June turf keep his memory. Let 
Nor wood, nor dell, nor storied stream forget, 

Nor winds that blow round lonely Cedarcroft; 

Let the home voices greet him in the far, 

Strange land that holds him ; let the messages 
Of love pursue him o'er the chartless seas 

And unmapped vastness of his unknown star ! 

Love's language, heard beyond the loud discourse 
Of perishable fame, in every sphere 
Itself interprets ; and its utterance here 

Somewhere in God's unfolding universe 

Shall reach our traveller, softening the surprise 
Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies ! 

Whittier: Bayard Taylor. 



Character and Criticism. — To think of him is to recall a person 
larger in make and magnanimity than the common sort ; a man of 
buoyancy, hopefulness, sweetness of temper, — loyal, shrinking from 
contention, yet ready to do battle for a principle or in the just cause 
of a friend ; stainless in morals, and of an honest}- so natural that he 
could not be surprised into an untruth or the commission of a mean 
act. ... In social life he was generous and unrestrained, full of 
the knightly, mirth-loving, romantic spirit. . . . He led a singu- 
larly happy life throughout, and the cloud foretokening its close was 
but of brief duration. He was fond of festivals of joy : he had honor, 
love, and loyal "troops of friends." — E. C. Stedman. 



BAYARD TAYLOR 155 

His soul preserved the hopeful freshness of its divine source, it 
flowed untainted and exulting through its earthly course, and fin- 
ished the circle of its career of life by pouring back into the foun- 
tain head a tide as clear and as blameless as the drops which conse- 
crate the infant. In its passage through the foul things of the world 
his nature seemed rather to filter and to purify itself, than to take 
any stain from the baser medium. This childlike purity and joyous- 
ness of heart Taylor owed to the worship of an art for which his 
reverence was boundless. To him poetry was a second religion, or 
an intellectual continuation of that natural, moral sentiment which 
lifts man above himself and his fortunes in his aspiration after im- 
mortality and supernal life. He held that no achievement of man 
was comparable to the creation of a living poem. He saw, with 
other thinking men, that the work of the poet is more like the work 
of God than any other earthly thing, since it is the only product of 
art that is assured of perpetuity, by the safety with which it can be 
transmitted from generation to generation. He believed himself to 
be a poet, — of what stature and quality it is now for the world to 
decide, — and in that faith he wrought at his vocation with an assidu- 
ity, and a careful husbanding of his time and opportunities for men- 
tal and for written poetical composition, that was wonderful as an 
exhibition of human industry, and in its many and varied results, 
when we take into consideration his wandering life and his diversi- 
fied and exacting employments. To him the cultivation of the poetic 
art was the duty and the serious business of his life, — the talent 
entrusted him, to be put at use, by the Master, — while the winning 
of bread and the struggle for place were subordinate cares, as insig- 
nificant by comparison as is the duration of one man's life to that of 
the race of man. — G. H. BokER. 

A Group of Taylor's Friends.— Tennyson, the Brownings, John 
Kenyon, Miss Mitford, Thackeray, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, 
Fields, Stedman, Stoddard, Aldrich, Boker, Curtis, Howells, Read, 
Sidney Lanier, Greeley. 

References. — Poem, Bayard Taylor, by J. G. Whittier; poem, 
Bayard Taylor, H. W. Longfellow; poem, To Bayard Taylor, by E. 
C. Stedman; poem, To Bayard Taylor, R. H. Stoddard; Poets of 
America, by E. C. Stedman ; Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, 
edited by Marie Hansen-Taylor and Horace E. Scudder ; Reminis- 
cences of Bayard Taylor, by H. H. Boyesen, Lippincott 's Magazine, 
August, 1879 ; Bayard Taylor, by Albert H. Smyth in American Men 



156 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

of Letters Series; Riverside Literature Series No. 16, contains Lars 
and a brief biographic sketch ; Taylor's own writings, At Home and 
Abroad, The Picture of St. John, and some of the Home Pastorals 
contain autobiographic passages. 

Principal Writings. — Ximena, 1844; Views Afoot, 1846; Eldorado, 
1850; Journey to Central Africa, 1854; The Land of the Saracens, 
1854; Lndia, China, and Japan, 1855; Northern Travel, 1857; Greece 
■and Russia, 1859 ; At Home and Abroad, 1859 ; the five novels, Han- 
nah Thurston, 1863; John Godfrey's Fortunes, 1864; The Story of 
Kennett, 1866 ; Joseph and His Friends, 1870 ; and Beauty and the 
Beast, 1872 ; By- Ways of Europe, 1869 ; Translation of Faust, 1870- 
71 ; The Echo Club, 1876 ; Boys of Other Countries, 1876; Studies in 
German Literature, 1879 ; Critical Essays and Literary Notes, 1880; 
Poems, complete in one volume, 1892; the three dramas, The 
Prophet, The Masque of the Gods, and Prince ■ Deukalion, in one 
volume. 

Additional Facts.— Bayard Taylor was born at Kennett Square, Chester 
County, Penn., January 11. 1825. Educated in the district school and in the 
academies at West Chester and Unionville. At the age of sixteen he began to 
contribute poems to local papers. Published his first book, Ximena, 1844, 
when he was nineteen, and July the 1st of that year, with two neighbor boys as 
companions, he started on his tour of Europe described in Views Afoot. Re- 
turned from Europe June 1, 1846. Moved to New York December 25, 1846. Secured 
a position on the Tribune, and formed many valuable friendships. Trip to 
California in 1849. Married Mary Agnew October 24, 1850. She died December 21, 
of the same year. His second journey abroad in 1851. Many subsequent jour- 
neys to foreign lands, on some of which he took his brother and sisters. His 
brother "Fred" was killed at Gettysburg. Taylor married Marie Hansen of 
Gotha, Germany, October 27, 1858. He built his house at Cedarcroft in 1859-60. 
Delivered the National Ode at Independence Square, Philadelphia, July 4, 1876. 
In 1878 appointed by President Hayes as Minister to Germany, and died in 
Berlin December 19th of that year. His remains arrived at New York March 13, 
1879. L,ay in state in City Hall until the 14th, taken to his home, Cedarcroft, at 
Kennett, where funeral services were held, Saturday, March 15, and the body 
t)orne to I,ongwood Cemetery, about two miles from Cedarcroft, and laid to rest 
beside that of Mary Agnew, in a place familiar to them in their childhood. Near 
by are the graves of his cousin, Frank Taylor, and Barclay Pennock, the two 
boys who were with him in his first tour of Europe, described in Views Afoot. 
Bayard Taylor's only child, a daughter, is married. Taylor's widow lives with 
the daughter in New York City. 

Selections From the Writings of Bayard Taylor: 

As some persons whom we pass as strangers strike a hidden 
chord in our spirits, compelling a silent sympathy with them, so some 
landscapes have a character of beauty which harmonizes thrillingly 



BAYARD TAYLOR 157 

with the inood in which we look upon them, till we forget admira- 
tion in the glow of spontaneous attachment. They seem like abodes 
of the Beautiful which the soul in its wanderings long ago visited, 
and now recognizes and loves as the home of a forgotten dream. 

Views Afoot. 

Sunshine, and hum of bees, and murmur of winds, and scent of 
flowers, came in through the open windows, and the bridal pair 
seemed to stand in the heart of the perfect springtime. 

The Story of Kennett. 

No people can ever become truly great or free who are not vir- 
tuous. If the soul aspires for liberty — pure and perfect liberty — 
it also aspires for everything that is noble in truth, everything that is 
holy in virtue. — Views Afoot. 

Nothing is useless that gratifies that perception of beauty which, 
is at once the most delicate and the most intense of our mental sen- 
sations, binding us by an unconscious link nearer to Nature and to 
Him whose every thought is born of Beauty, Truth, and Love. 

Views Afoot. 
Only a woman knows a woman's need. — Lars. 

Each separate star 
Seems nothing, but a myriad scattered stars 
Break up the Night, and make it beautiful. — Lars. 

In many a mountain fastness, 

By many a river's foam, 
And through the gorgeous cities, 

'Twas loneliness to roam; 
For the sweetest music in my heart 

Was the olden songs of home. 

The Wayside Dream, 

Literary Gleaning. — Have you read Views Afoot ? Name 
some of Taylor's best poems. Quote the lines from The Song of the 
Camp. Tell about Bayard Taylor's childhood home, his parents, his 
first teachers. Quote the substance of his letter to his teacher, Ruth 
Ann Chambers. What does he say of the influence of the poetry she 
had her pupils copy and memorize? Tell about his travels. Who 
went with him on his first trip to Europe? Tell about his National 
Ode. Read the poems of Longfellow and Whittier entitled Bayard 
Taylor. 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND 

(1819-1881) 

Who knew him, loved him. His the longing heart 

For what his youth had missed, his manhood known— 

The haunts of Song, the fellowship of Art— 
And all their kin, he strove to make his own. 

F,. C. Stedman. 

Dr. Holland will always find a congenial audience in the homes of cul- 
ture and refinement. He does not affect the play of the darker and fiercer 
passions, but delights in the sweet images that cluster around the domestic 
hearth. He cherished a strong fellow-feeling with the pure and tranquil life 
in the modest social circles of the American people, and has thus won his 
way to the companionship of many friendly hearts.— New York Tribune. 

To read Dr. Holland's writings and feel the ennobling 
power of such pure and vigorous manhood is a perpetual 
inspiration. 

The young man or woman who is not stimulated to 
live a nobler, truer life by reading 
Letters to Young People, Gold- 
Foil, Arthur Bonnicastle, Kath- 
rina, or any of Dr. Holland's 
works, must be either helplessly 
stupid or hopelessly bad. The 
writer of these words had the 
priceless privilege of reading Hol- 
land's Letters to Young People 
("Titcomb's Letters") when a 
country boy of fourteen, and has 
often said both in public lectures 
and private conversation that of 
all the ennobling influences that 
came into his young life this book 
was by far the most enriching and helpful, except the 
Bible. The essay, Bad Habits, helped mightily to make 
this country lad the pronounced enemy of tobacco, pro- 
fanity, impurity — everything that enslaves and mars man- 




J. G. HOLLAND 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND 159 

hood, or cheapens and degrades womanhood, and the true 
friend of all that dignifies and purifies life. This one sen- 
tence from this essay should be framed and hung on the 
walls of schoolrooms and in all public buildings until it is 
deeply impressed on the hearts of the young : "A young 
man is not fit for life until he is clean — clean and healthy, 
body and soul, with no tobacco in his mouth, no liquor in 
his stomach, no oath on his tongue, and no thought in his 
heart which if exposed would send him sneaking into dark- 
ness from the presence of all good women." Gold-Foil is 
a priceless treasure both to the individual and the home. 
What a matchless plea for the Bible is The Infallible Book! 
How one learns to hate vice as he reads 7* he Cano?iization 
of the Vicious, Vices of the Imagination, and Does Sensu- 
ality Pay ! 

Holland's long poems, Bitter-Sweet, The Mistress of 
the Manse, and Kathrina are deservedly popular. As a 
loving tribute to his own mother and wife and to all noble 
women, the introduction to Kathrina is unsurpassed for 
tenderness and beauty: 

"Not many friends my life has made; 

Few have I loved,, and few are they 
Who in my hand their hearts have laid; 

And these were women. I am gray, 
But never have I been betrayed." 

Of Dr. Holland's shorter poems at least three, Grada- 
tim, Wanted, and A Glimpse of Youth contain the elements 
of immortality and should be memorized and become a part 
of the soul-furniture of every boy and girl. 

At Springfield, Mass., near to Mt. Holyoke and the 
beautiful Connecticut, the mountain and the river which 



160 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

were a delight to his childhood and an inspiration to his 
manhood years, is the grave of Dr. J. G. Holland. 

O mountain ! guard his precious dust ; 

O river ! seaward flowing, 
By night your softest dews bestow 

To keep the grasses growing 
That ever, with the bitter-sweet 

His sacred grave shall cover — 
Servant of man and friend of God, 

Brave thinker, steadfast lover. 

Washington Gladden. 

His own hand his best wreath must lay! 
Of his own life his last words are true- 
So true, love's truth no truer thing can say — 
"By sympathy all hearts to him he drew." 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 



Biography. — Dr. Holland was born at Belchertown, Mass., July 
24, 1819. He was eminently well-born, his parents being typical 
New England people. His poem, Daniel Gray, is a picture of his 
father. That Dr. Holland's mother and his wife were noble types of 
womanhood, no one can doubt after reading his Tribute at the be- 
ginning of Kathrina. He married Miss Elizabeth Chapin of Spring- 
field, Mass., in 1845. Dr. Holland graduated at Berkshire Medical 
College, Pittsfield, Mass. He was for a time Superintendent of 
Schools, Vicksburg, Miss. In 1849 he became associate editor of the 
Springfield Republican, in which paper " Timothy Titcomb's Let- 
ters " were first published. He traveled in Europe. Founded Scrib- 
ner's Monthly, which became the Century Magazine, of which Dr. 
Holland was editor until his death. Appointed on Board of Educa- 
tion, New York City, and became its President. Became a popular 
lecturer. He died at his home in New York City, October 12, 1881, 
and his body was laid to rest at Springfield, Mass. Dr. Washington 
Gladden preached the memorial sermon. Dr. Holland's wife and 
three children, Annie, Kate, and Theodore, survive him. " The Buff 
Cottage " and " Brightwood " were Dr. Holland's homes at Spring- 
field and " Bonnie-Castle " his summer home at Alexandria Bay. " By 
sympathy all hearts to him he drew," were the last words written by 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND 161 

Dr. Holland. They were written of Garfield on the day before Hol- 
land's death. Dr. Holland was a noble Christian, an earnest worker 
in church and Sunday-school, a beautiful singer, leader of the choir. 
On Dr. Holland's monument at Springfield are the following words 
from his will: "For the great hereafter I trust in the Infinite 
Love, as it is expressed to me in the life and death of my Lord and 
Savior, Jesus Christ." See Mrs. H. M. Plunkett's excellent biography 
of Dr. Holland entitled Josiah Gilbert Holland. 

Character and Criticism. — It was especially the distinction of Dr. 
Holland that he used the newspaper's power to serve the preacher's 
purpose. As a moral teacher he found a weapon superior to the old 
as a rifle is superior to a cross-bow, or a locomotive to a stage-coach. 
No less did he enlarge and ennoble the function of journalism by 
putting it to a newer and higher use. He showed that a newspaper 
might do more than tell the news. . . . He used the daily or 
monthly journal to purify and sweeten the fountains of personal and 
family life. . . . He did a work large in itself; large in the impress 
it left on two great periodicals ; large as the omen of the nobler 
work to be done by the press, an instance of new and greater chan- 
nels through which God fulfills his purpose. — George S. Merriam. 

At any rate it is enough to say that he knew what he was about 
when he wrote novels with a purpose. And it must be admitted by 
everybody that his purposes were high and pure ; that the blows he 
struck with this good weapon of fiction were telling blows. The 
same thing is true of his poems. All of his principal poems take 
hold of great themes, deal with the great interests of character and 
the great spiritual laws. . . . He was a true and generous friend. 
With quick sympathies and warm enthusiams, he was always ready 
to bear the burdens of others, and his hearty words and painstaking 
services have lightened many a heart. — Washington Gladden. 

Above all, his honest directness of purpose, his hatred of sham, 
his vigorous championing of truth and wholesomeness in the work 
of authorship, and the high standard of literature and society, which 
was set up by him in theory, and so conspicuously illustrated in his 
own manly practice, made him not only one of the most successful, 
but one of the most useful and beneficial of the writers and authors 
of our age.— Christian Index. 

Principal Writings.— The Bay Path, 1857; Bitter-Sweet, 1858; 
Letters to Young People, 1858; Gold-Foil, 1859; Miss Gilbert's 



162 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Career, 1860; Lessons in Life, 1861; Letters to the Joneses, 1863; 
Plain Talks, 1865; Life of Lincoln, 1865; Kathrina, 1867; The 
Marble Prophecy, 1872; Arthur Bonnicastle, 1873; Mistress of the 
Manse, 1874 ; Seven Oaks, 1875 ; Nicholas Minturn, 1877 ; Every- 
day Topics (two series), 1876, 1882. 

Selections for Memorizing. 

I know that just before me, or somewhere before me, there is 
a generation of men who will think less of being saved, and more 
of being worth saving, less of dogma, and more of duty, less of law, 
and more of love.— Lessons in Life, Undeveloped Resources. 

The truth is, that no man can do an unmanly thing without 
inflicting an injury on the whole human race. . . . Every sin 
shakes men's confidence in men, and becomes, whatever its origin, 
the enemy of mankind ; and all mankind have a right to make com- 
mon cause in its extermination. — Lessons in Life, Faith in Hu- 
manity. 

A man who only asserts so much of that which is in him as will 
find favor with those among whom he has his daily life, and who 
withholds all that will wound their vanity and condemn their selfish- 
ness and clash with their principles and prejudices, has no more 
manhood in him than there is in a spaniel, and is certainly one of the 
most contemptible shirks the world contains. — Plain Talks, Working 
and Shirking. 

When the people of France pulled down both God and the 
church, and set up reason in their place, all the infernal elements 
of human nature held their brief high carnival. That one terrific 
experiment should be enough for a thousand worlds, through count- 
less years— Gold-Foil, The Infallible Book. 

Woman will be pure if man will be true. Young men, this 
great result abides with you. If you could but see how beautiful a 
flower grows upon the thorny stalk of self-denial, you would give 
the plant the honor it deserves. If it seem hard and homely, despise 
it not, for in it sleeps the beauty of heaven, and the breath of angels. 

Gold-Foil, Does Sensuality Pay? 
What is the little one thinking about? 

Very wonderful things, no doubt! 
Unwritten history! 
Unfathomed mastery! 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND 163 

Yet he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks, 
And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks, 
As if his head were as full of kinks 
And curious riddles as any sphinx! — Bitter-Sweet. 

There 's a song in the air! 

There 's a star in the sky! 
There 's a mother's deep prayer 
And a baby's low cry! 
And the star rains its fire while the Beautiful sing, 
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a king. 

A Christinas Carol. 
Toward every brave and careless boy 
Whose lusty shout or call I hear, 
The boy within me springs with joy 
And rings an echo to his cheer. 

A Glimpse of Youth. 

Literary Gleaning. — Do you own copies of Holland's Letters 
to Young People and his Gold-Foil and do you read them often? 
Have you read Getting the Right Start, Bad Habits, and The Pru- 
dent and Proper Use of Language in Letters to Young People, and 
The Infallible Book in Gold-Foil? Quote the sentence from Bad 
Habits beginning, "A young man is not fit," etc. Have you read 
Plain Talks, Lessons in Life, Seven Oaks, Arthur Bonnicastle, 
Nicholas Minium, Miss Gilbert's Career, Mistress of the Manse, 
Kathrina and Bitter-Sweet ? Quote some of the finest lines from 
Kathrina. Read " A Tribute " at the beginning of Kathrina, and 
quote the tribute to women, beginning, " Not many friends my life 
has made." What does George S. Merriam say of Dr. Holland as an 
editor? Give a short sketch of Dr. Holland's life. Quote the last 
words he wrote and tell of whom they were written. Name Hol- 
land's principal works and tell which one you like best. What do 
Stedman, Dr. Gladden, and " H. H." say about Holland and his 
writings? Tell about the following characters in Holland's books: 
Kathrina, Arthur Bonnicastle, Mr. Benson, Paul, Jim Fenton, Nicho- 
las Minturn, Miss Butterworth, Miss Larkin, Mr. Belcher, Mrs. 
Coates. 



ALICE CARY 

(1820-1871) 

Yet ere the summer eve grew long, 
Her modest lips were sweet with song; 
A memory haunted all her words 
Of clover-fields and singing birds. 



Years passed: through all the land her name 
A pleasant household word became ; 
All felt behind the singer stood 
A sweet and gracious womanhood. 

Whittier : The Singer. 

"A sweet and gracious wo- 
manhood," indeed! As Ohio 
counts her jewels how lovingly 
she pauses at the names of these 
sweet song-birds! As we walk 
about Clovernook where Alice 
and Phoebe Cary were born, 
and where they passed their 
childhood and early womanhood, 
we rest under the trees they 
loved, and drink of the water of 
that "deep old well" of which 
Phoebe writes in her poem, Our 
Homestead : 

" And there never was water half so sweet 
As the draught that rilled nry cup, 
Drawn up to the curb by the rude old sweep 
That my father's hand set up." 

And in imagination we cross the threshold and sit by 
the fire in the " old brown homestead" as we read: 
" Our homestead had an ample hearth, 
Where at night we loved to meet; 
There my mother's voice was always kind, 

And her smile was always sweet; 
And there I've sat on my father's knee, 
And watched his thoughtful brow, 




ALICE CARY 



ALICE CARY 165 

With my childish hands in his raven hair, — 

That hair is silver now ! 
But that broad hearth's light, oh that broad hearth's light ! 

And my father's look, and my mother's smile, 
They are in my heart to-night!" 

To this mother with the kind voice and sweet smile, 
Alice pays a most tender tribute in her poem, An Order 
for a Picture: 

" A lady, the loveliest ever the sun 
Looked down upon you must paint for me : 
Oh, if I only could make you see 

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, 
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace, 
The woman's soul, and the angel's face 
That are beaming on me all the while, 

I need not speak these foolish words: 
Yet one word tells you all I would say, — 
She is my mother." 

It was this same "sweet and gracious " Alice Cary who 
wrote that immortal poem, Nobility, beginning: 

" True worth is in being, not seeming, — 

In doing each day that goes by 
Some little good — not in dreaming 

Of great things to do by and by. 
For whatever men say in blindness, 

And spite of the fancies of youth, 
There's nothing so kingly as kindness, 

And nothing so royal as truth." 

Some of Alice Cary's best poems are Nobility, An 
Order for a Picture, A Dream of Home, My Dream of 
Dreams, Pictures of Memory , The Poet to the Painter, Hide 
and Seek, and The Old Homestead. 

The beautiful story of Alice and Phoebe Cary is sym- 
pathetically told by their friend, Mary Clemmer, in her 
Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary, from which is taken 
the following description of Alice's funeral: 



166 



AMERICAN AUTHORS 




" Dear Alice Cary, sweet singer of the heart, is gone. 
New York was shrouded in snow when her gentle face was 
shut away from human sight forever. In the plain little 
Church of the Stranger, with her true friend, Dr. Deems, 

officiating, and many other true 
j|j friends gathered around in 
mourning silence, with streets 
all muffled into sympathetic 
stillness by the heavy drifting 
snow, and deep, strong sorrow 
rising from hearts to eyes, the 
sad funeral rites were perform- 
ed. Rarely has a more touch- 
ing scene been witnessed than 
that which separated Alice Cary 
from the world that loved her. 
Many of those present were 
moved to tears, though only one 
was bound to her by kinship. 
That one was her sister, Phoebe, her constant companion 
from childhood, and more than her sister — her second self 
— through thirty years of literary trial. The little church 
was filled with literary friends who had grown warmly 
attached to both during their twenty years' residence in 
New York. . . . Near the rosewood coffin that con- 
tained the body of the sweet poet, sat Horace Greeley, 
Bayard Taylor, Richard B. Kimball, Oliver Johnson, P. T. 
Barnum, Frank B. Carpenter, A. J. Johnson, and Dr. W. W. 
Hall, who for near and special friendship during her life, 
were chosen to be nearest to her to the grave. When the 
sad rites of the church were concluded, the body was borne 
forth and taken to Greenwood Cemetery, the snow still 
falling heavily, and covering all things with a pure white 
shroud. It seemed as though nature were in sympathy 



PHCEBE CARY 



ALICE CARY 167 

with human sorrow, till the grave was closed, for then the 
snow almost ceased, though the sky remained dark, and the 
silence continued. And thus the mortal part of Alice Cary 
was laid at rest forever." 

Again the blackbirds sing; the streams 
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, 
And tremble in the April showers 
The tassels of the maple flowers. 

But not for her has spring renewed 
The sweet surprises of the wood ; 
And bird and flower are lost to her 
Who was their best interpreter ! 



O white soul ! from that far-off shore 
Float some sweet song the waters o'er, 
Our faith confirm, our fears dispel, 
With the old voice we loved so well ! 

WhiTTier: The Singer. 

Additional Facts.— On a farm near Mt. Healthy, Ohio, eight miles north of 
Cincinnati, Alice Cary was born April 26, 1820. In the same brown house, 
"low and small," Phoebe was born September 4, 1824. At their home in Twen- 
tieth Street, New York, they spent the last twenty years of their life. But 
"the good old-fashioned homestead" where they were born was always very 
dear to them, as is shown by such poems as Alice's The Old Homestead, Phoebe's 
Our Homestead, and many others. Their brother, Warren, the only one left of 
their family of seven girls and two boys is living on the old farm. The old 
homestead is called Clovernook. Alice's prose works are Clovernook, Hagar, 
Married not Mated, Pictures of Country Life, and Snow -Berries, a book for 
young people, made up of short stories and poems. Phoebe's poems, Nobody's 
Child, Suppose, Dovecote Mill, Our Homestead, and others are somewhat familiar, 
but she will be remembered by her immortal hymn, Nearer Home, beginning: 
"One sweetly solemn thought." Neither Alice nor Phoebe ever married. Alice's 
poem, My Dream of Dreams, explains her " smile too sweetly sad." Alice died 
at their home in New York, February 12, 1871. Phoebe died at Newport, R. I., 
July 31, 1871. The graves of Alice, Phcebe, and their sister Elmina are side 
by side in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn." Alice Cary has been called "the 
Jean Ingelow of America." 



The ideal man is " a brother of girls," as the choice Arab proverb 
phrases it.— Frances E. Willard. 

With memories stored full of sunshiny days, in which were merry games, 
strolls through the woods and over the prairies, rides in the fields, work in the 
garden, I count childhood a sweet and blessed season.— Frances E- Willard. 



168 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Selections from Alice Cary's poems: 

We get back our mete as we measure — 

We cannot do wrong and feel right, 
Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure, 

For justice avenges each slight. 
The air for the wing of the sparrow, 

The bush for the robin and wren, 
But alway the path that is narrow 

And straight, for the children of men. — Nobility. 

O wild flowers, wet with tearful dew, 

O woods, with starlight shining through! 

My heart is back to-night with you! 

A Dream of Home. 
But whether the brooks be fringed with flowers, 

Or whether the dead leaves fall, 
And whether the air be full of songs, 

Or never a song at all, 
And whether the vines of the strawberries 

Or frosts through the grasses run, 
And whether it rain or whether it shine 

Is all to me as one, 
For bright as brightest sunshine 

The light of memory streams 
Round the old-fashioned homestead, 

Where I dreamed my dream of dreams! 

The Old Homestead. 
Dear Lord, how little man's award 

The right or wrong attest, 
And he who judges least, I think, 

Is he who judges best. — The Best Judgment. 
Literary Gleaning. — Do you own a copy of Alice and 
Phoebe Cary's poems? Have you read Alice's poems, Tricksey's 
Ring, Nobility, An Order for a Picture, A Dream of Home, My 
Dream of Dreams, and The Old Homestead, and Phoebe's Nobody's 
Child, Our Homestead, and Nearer Home? Give a brief sketch 
of the life of Alice and Phoebe Cary. Have you read Mary Clem- 
mer's Memorial of Alice and Phcsbe Cary and Whittier's poem, The 
Singer? Quote favorite stanzas from the poems of Alice and 
Phoebe Cary. What does Miss Willard say about "the ideal man," 
her " sunshiny days " ? 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 



( 1812-1896 ) 



Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find 
The way to all the hearts of all mankind, 
On thee, already canonized, enshrined, 

What more can Heaven bestow ! 

O. W. Holmes. 

In the great anti-slavery 
struggle in our country, poets 
and orators could convince and 
arouse a few of the high-minded 
and noble, but it was left for 
Mrs. Stowe in her pathetic story, 
Uncle Tom's Cabin, to touch the 
hearts and consciences of the 
people and make human slavery 
too odious to exist on American 
soil. ' ' 

Uncle Tom's Cabin was the 
most popular novel ever written 
in America. Ten thousand cop- 
ies were sold in a few days, and over three hundred thou- 
sand within a year, and eight power-presses running day 
and night were barely able to keep pace with the demand 
for it. In a letter to Garrison, Whittier wrote: " What a 
glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought!" In a 
letter to Mrs. Stowe, Charles Dickens said: "I have read 
your book with the deepest interest and sympathy, and ad- 
mire more than I can express to you, both the generous feel- 
ing which inspired it, and the admirable power with which 
it is executed." A noted French author wrote: "When 
the first translation of ' Uncle Tom ' was published in Paris 
there was a great hallelujah for the author and the cause. 
. . . It was read by high and low, by grown persons 




HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 



170 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

and children. The popularity of the work in France was 
immense." 

Mrs. Stowe visited England and was cordially received 
by all classes of people. An account of her tour through 
Europe was published as Sunny Memories of Foreign 
Lands. Besides the books already mentioned, some of Mrs. 
Stowe's best works are Drcd, a Tale of the Great Dismal 
Swamp, The Minister 's Wooing, Agnes of Sorrento, Old 
Town Folks, Pink and White Tyranny , Old Town Fireside 
Stories, My Wife and I, We and our Neighbors, Poganuc 
People, and A Dog's Mission. To answer the many in- 
quiries concerning the characters and incidents in Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, Mrs. Stowe wrote A Key to Uncle Tom 's Cabin. 

Additional Facts. — Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, daughter of Lyman Beecher 
and sister of Henry Ward Beecher, was born at Litchfield, Conn., June 14, 1812 
At the age of thirteen, she entered her sister Catharine's school in Hartford, 
Conn., where she remained until 1832, when her father removed to Cincinnati. 
She married Prof. Calvin E. Stowe in 1836. Her husband having accepted a pro- 
fessorship in Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, they moved there in 1850. 
Here Uncle Tom's Cabin was written and published as a serial in the National 
Era, Washington, D. C, running from June, 1851, to Apr., 1852. It was published 
in book form Mar. 20, 1852. Many years ago, Mrs. Stowe called forth a storm of 
adverse criticism by a review of an English work, The True Story of Lord By- 
ron's Life, written by Alfred Austin who was recently made the successor of 
Tennyson as Poet Laureate of England. In reply to her critics, Mrs. Stowe wrote 
Lady Byron Vindicated. At her home in Forest Street, Hartford, Conn., with 
Charles Dudley Warner and " Mark Twain " as near neighbors, Mrs- Stowe spent 
the closing years of her life, and here she died July 1, 1896. Her body was borne 
to Andover, Mass., and laid to rest by the side of that of her husband, Prof. Calvin 
E- Stowe. See Mrs. Stowe's biography by her son, Charles E. Stowe, Dr. Holmes's 
two poems. At the Summit and The World's Homage, Ladies' Home Journal, 
June, 1896, The Century, Sept., 1896, and Authors and Friends, by Mrs. Fields. 

Literary Gleaning. — Have you read Uncle Tom's Cabin f 
Tell about this famous book. Name other books written by Mrs. 
Stowe. Give a brief sketch of the life of Mrs. Stowe. What does 
Miss Willard say about speaking " more kindly " ? Tell about Uncle 
Tom, Eva, Legree, Cassy, Topsy, and Miss Ophelia. 

I will speak more kindly and considerately to those whose claims are un- 
recognized by the society in which I live, than I will to others. I will bow more 
cordially to those to whom persons of position do not bow at all and I will try 
in a thousand pleasant, nameless ways to make them happier. God help me to 
keep my promise good ! — Frances E. Willard. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 

(1789-1851) 

Cooper has the faculty of giving to his pictures an astonishing reality. 
They are not mere transcripts of Nature, though as such they would possess 
extraordinary merit, but actual creations, embodying the very spirit of intelli- 
gent and genial experience and observation. — Rtjfus W. Griswold. 

The empire of the sea has been conceded to him ; in the lonely desert, or 
untrodden prairie, among the savage Indians or scarcely less savage settlers, we 
equally acknowledge his dominion. — The Edinburgh Review. 

Of the thirty-nine books written by Cooper, nine are 
sea-tales and five, The Deer slayer, The Last of the Mohi- 
cans, The Pathfi?ider, The Piojieer, and The Prairie, are 
forest-tales and comprise the "Leather Stocking Series." 

Among his best novels are The Spy, The Pilot, The 
Last of the Mohicans, The Red Rover, The Pathfinder, The 
Prairie, and The Deerslayer. In addition to his novels he 
published Sketches of Switzerland, Gleanings in Europe, 
History of the Navy of the United States, and Lives of Dis- 
tinguished Naval Officers. 

Cooper's literary life is said to have begun in rather a 
curious way : One evening while reading an English novel 
to his wife, he declared that he could write a better one 
himself. To prove it, he wrote Precaution, which was 
published anonymously in 1819. The book attracted very 
little attention and is said to have been disowned by its 
author. The Spy, a novel founded on incidents of the 
American Revolution, was published in 1821, and became 
popular at once. It was translated into the leading Euro- 
pean languages as well as the languages of Persia and 
Arabia. The Spy was favorably compared with the 
Waverly Novels, and Cooper was called the "Walter Scott 
of America." 

He resided at Cooperstown and in Westchester County, 
N. Y., until 1821, when he moved to New York City. In 



172 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

1826 he crossed the ocean, and spent seven years in foreign 
lands. At the time of his death he had in press a new his- 
torical work, The Towns of Manhattan, and contemplated 
writing a sixth Leather-Stocking tale. Cooper was physi- 
cally massive, and seemed to possess rugged health ; but in 
his later years was a victim to dropsy, and died suddenly at 
Cooperstown, N. Y., on the eve of his sixty-second birth- 
day, September 14, 1851. See J. Fenimore Cooper, by 
T. R. Lounsbury in American Men of Letters. 

If you are about to strive for your life, take with you a stout 
heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God. — The Pilot. 



• ^--^ ■ 

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 

(1822-1872) 

T. B. Read was both an artist and a poet. His best 
known paintings are the group of Longfellow's daughters, 
the portrait of Mrs. Browning, and the one illustrating his 
poem Sheridan's Ride. His book, Female Poets of America, 
illustrated with portraits drawn by himself, the poems, The 
New Pastoral, The Wagoner of the Alleghenies, The House 
by the Sea, The Closing Scene, Drifting, and Sheridan's 
Ride, are his best known literary productions. Of his 
poems, Sheridan's Ride is the most popular, D?'ifting, the 
most beautiful. 

Biography. — Read was born in Chester County, Penn., March 12, 
1822, and spent his childhood among the pastoral scenes of the 
beautiful " Vale of Chester," famous as the home of Bayard Taylor. 
At the age of seventeen he went to Cincinnati, and, being employed 
in the studio of Clevinger, the sculptor, he was attracted to portrait 
painting, and soon became somewhat famous in that department of 
art. Intending to devote his life to art, he went to New York in 
1841, and a year later, to Boston, where he drifted into literature by 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 17& 

his lyrics published in the Courier. He removed to Philadelphia^ 
and published his first volume of poems in 1847. Turning again to 
Art, his first love, from 1853 to 1858 he studied in Florence and 
Rome. This poet-artist died in New York, May 11, 1872, just after 
his return from a visit to Rome. 

The maid who binds her warrior's sash 

With smile that well her pain dissembles, 
The while beneath her drooping lash 

One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles, 
Though Heaven alone records the tear 

And Fame shall never know her story, 
Her heart has shed a drop as dear 

As e'er bedewed the field of glory. 

The Wagoner of the Alteghenies* 

O happy ship 

To rise and dip, 
With the blue crystal at your lip! 

O happy crew, 

My heart with you 
Sails, and sails, and sings anew! 

No more, no more 

The worldly shore 
Upbraids me with its loud uproar: 

With dreamful eyes 

My spirit lies 
Under the walls of Paradise ! 

Drifting. 



174 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING 

(1780-1842) 

There is a persuasive charm over all his writings, flowing from his earnest- 
ness of purpose, his deep love of humanity, his glowing hopes, and his fervid re- 
ligious faith. He has a poet's love of beauty and a prophet's love of truth. He 
lays the richest of gifts upon the purest of altars. The heart expands under his 
influence, as it does when we see a beautiful countenance beaming with the 
finest expression of benevolence and sympathy. — George S. Hillard. 

Channing spoke words which followed the human heart wherever it 
went ; they followed the merchant to his place of business, the workman to his 
shop, the scholar to his meditations and his essays or his verses, and woman all 
through the winding paths of her social life. All through the first third of this 
century this one man poured out upon New England an amazing flood of elo- 
quence, and each word of the whole volume touched some musical chord of the 
soul. — Prof. David Swing. 

Some of Dr. Channing's best essays and addresses 
are An Estimate of Bonaparte, The Need of an Original 
Literature, Spiritual Freedom, The True Remedy for War, 
The Abolitionists , Advice to a Preacher, and Unitariayiism. 
His article on Fenelon and one on Milton and his able lec- 
tures on Self- Culture and kindred topics, together with the 
series on the Elevation of the Laboring Classes, won high 
praise not only in his own country, but in Europe. His works 
have been translated into the German and French languages, 
and extensive editions have been published in Germany, 
France, and England. The most complete edition of his 
works was published in Boston in 1848, and in the same 
year was published a memoir of Dr. Channing, edited by 
his nephew, W. H. Channing, containing selections from 
his correspondence. 

Biography. — Dr. Charming was born in Newport, R. I., April 7, 
1780. His father was for many years attorney-general of Rhode Island 
and his maternal grandfather was William Ellery, a signer of the Dec- 
laration of Independence. Young Channing graduated at Harvard 
with highest honors, and then spent two years as private tutor in a 
family at Richmond, Va. He studied theology at Cambridge, and 
became pastor of Federal Street Congregational Church in Boston. 



WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING 175 

He was leader in the liberal Congregational movement which de- 
veloped into Unitarianism, and was deeply interested in all social re- 
forms. He preached fearlessly against war, slavery, and intemper- 
ance. Dr. Channing visited Europe in 1822 and made the acquaint- 
ance of many literary people, among them Wordsworth and Cole- 
ridge, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. It was of Dr. 
Channing that Coleridge wrote, " He has the love of wisdom and the 
wisdom of love." 

Dr. Channing's nephew and namesake, William Ellery Channing 
the poet, who was the neighbor and companion of Emerson, Haw- 
thorne, Thoreau, and the Alcotts, at this date, February, 1896, resides 
with Frank B. Sanborn, Concord, Mass. 

Dr. Channing, while on a mountain excursion, died at Benning- 
ton, Vt, Oct. 2, 1842. Over his grave in Mt. Auburn, a monument 
designed by his friend, Washington Allston, has been erected to his 

memory. 

God blesses still the generous thought, 

Arid still the fitting word He speeds, 
And Truth, at His requiring taught, 

He quickens into deeds. 

Where is the victory of the grave ? 

What dust upon the spirit lies? 
God keeps the sacred life he gave, — 

The prophet never dies ! 

WhitTier: Poem on Channing. 

In an address on Dr. Channing given on the centenary of his 
birth, Apr. 7, 1880, Dr. Henry W. Bellows said in part : " Even in the pul- 
pit he lived the things he saw and said! The greatness of human na- 
ture shone in his beautiful brow, sculptured with thought and lighted 
from within ; his eye so full and blue, was lustrous with a vision of 
God, and seemed almost an open door into the shining presence. 
His voice, sweet, round, unstrained, full, though low, lingered as if 
with awed delay upon the words that articulated his dearest thoughts, 
and trembled with an ever-restrained but most contagious emotion. 
. . So profoundly helpful, so inspiring was his preaching, that I, 

for one, lived on it, from fortnight to fortnight, and went to it every 
time with the expectation and the experience of receiving the bread 
of heaven on which I was to live and grow, until the manna fell again ; 
and men of all ages had much the same feeling." 



176 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

I have said, preach plainly and preach earnestly ; I now say, 
preach with moral courage. Fear no man, high or low, rich or poor, 
taught or untaught. Honor all men ; love all men ; but fear none. 
Speak what you account great truths frankly, strongly, boldly. Do 
not spoil them of life to avoid offense. Do not seek to propitiate 
passion and prejudice by compromise and concession. . . . 
Never shrink from speaking your mind, through dread of reproach. 
Wait not to be backed by numbers. Wait not till you are sure of an 
echo from a crowd. The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the 
more distinct and strong must be your own. Put faith in truth as 
mightier than error, prejudice, or passion, and be ready to take a 
place among its martyrs. — Advice to a Preacher. 

God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant 
and dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books 
are the true levelers. They give to all who will faithfully use them the 
society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. 
No matter how poor I am, though the prosperous of my own time 
will not enter my obscure dwelling, if the sacred writers will enter 
and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my thresh- 
hold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the 
worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and 
Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for 
want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated 
man though excluded from what is called the best society in the 
place where I live. — Self-Culture. 



^~«< 

GEORGE BANCROFT 

(1800-1891) 

History, in his view, is no accident or chance concurrence of incidents, but 
an organic growth, which the actors control and to which they are subservient. 
. . . The history of America is the history of liberty. The author never relaxes 
his grasp of this central law. Hence the manly vigor and epic grandeur of his- 
tory.— E. A. Duyckinck. 

Bancroft's fame rests on his History of the United 
States, in the preparation of which he spent many of the 
best years of his noble life. His other best known produc- 



GEORGE BANCROFT 177 

tions are Poems, Oration at Northampton, History of the 
Political Systems of Europe (translated), Literary and His- 
torical Miscellanies, Memorial Address on Lincoln, and A 
Plea for the Constitution of the United States of America, 
Woimded in the House of its Guardians. 

Biography. — George Bancroft was born at Worcester, Mass., 
October 3, 1800. He graduated at Harvard, continued his studies in 
Germany, graduating from the University of Gottingen in 1820. 
Knew Gcethe and other famous German writers. He was tutor of 
Greek at Harvard one year and was the founder of a collegiate school 
at Northampton, Mass. He was elected to the Massachusetts Legis- 
lature in 1830 but declined to serve. Was collector of the port of 
Boston from 1838 to 1841, and became Secretary of the Navy under 
President Polk in 1845. He established the naval academy at An- 
napolis. Served as United States Minister to Great Britain, Russia, 
and Germany, received the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford, and was 
a member of many learned societies in Europe. Died at Washing- 
ton, D. C, January 17, 1891. 



In America a new people had risen up without king, or princes, 
or nobles, knowing little of tithes and little of landlords, the plough 
being for the most part in the hands of free holders of the soil. 
They were more sincerely religious, better educated, of serener 
minds, and of purer morals than the men of any former republic. 
By calm meditation and friendly counsels they had prepared a con- 
stitution which, in the union of freedom with strength and order, 
excelled every one known before ; and which secured itself against 
violence and revolution by providing a peaceful method for every 
needed reform. In the happy morning of their existence as one of 
the powers of the world, they had chosen justice for their guide ; 
and while they proceeded on their way with a well-founded confi- 
dence and joy, all the friends of mankind invoked success on their 
unexampled endeavor to govern states and territories of imperial 
extent as one federal republic. — History of the United States. 



178 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

WILLIAM HICKLIXG PRESCOTT 

(1796-1859) 

The great historian of the New World, who has scarcely a rival in the 
Old one,— the excellent Prescott.— Alexander Von Humboldt. 

Mr. Prescott's leading excellence is that healthy objectiveness of mind 
which enables him to represent persons and events in their just relations. 
. . The scenery, characters, incidents, with which his history deals are all 
conceived with singular intensity and appear on his page instinct with their 
peculiar life.— E. P. Whipple. 

Prescott's fame is made secure by his four historical 
works, Ferdinand and Isabella, Conquest of Mexico, Con- 
quest of Peru, and Reign of Philip II An additional work, 
Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, was published in 
1845. 

Biography. — Prescott was born in Salem, Mass., May 4, 1796. 
His father was a distinguished lawyer, and his paternal grandfather 
was the Revolutionary patriot, Col. Prescott of Bunker Hill fame. 
The future historian was equally fortunate as to his maternal ances- 
try. "His mother was the embodiment of energy, good sense, and 
benevolence," says Whipple. The family having moved to Boston, 
young Prescott was prepared for college in the school of the Rev. 
Dr. Gardner, a fine classical scholar and a most genial gentleman. 
Having entered Harvard, he graduated at the age of eighteen. He 
intended to study law, but in the last year of his college course he 
sustained a serious injury that changed all his plans for the future. 
One da}- as the students were leaving the dining-hall, hearing an up- 
roar, young Prescott looked back and was struck in his left eye by a 
crust of bread thrown by some boisterous student. He fell senseless 
to the floor. The missile destroyed the sight of his eye, and through 
sympathy his right eye became very weak. After a severe illness, he 
returned to Harvard and completed his course. At graduation he 
was selected as one of the commencement "orators." "He recited, 
with great applause, a Latin poem on Hope, of his own composition." 

After spending two years in foreign travel and having settled 
down in his father's home in Boston, Prescott determined to devote 
ten years to the study of ancient and modern literature and ten years 
to writing history. His first work, The Reign of Ferdinand and 



JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 179 

Isabella, published in 1838, was successful at once, and was translated 
into five European languages. 

Though wealthy, Prescott was simple and methodical in his 
life. Rising early, he always walked five miles on fair days ; when 
the weather was inclement he exercised at home. He devoted five 
hours daily to his literary work ; and, to cultivate his imagination, 
he listened two hours each day to the reading of Scott, Dickens, and 
other imaginative writers. 

In a letter to Charles Sumner, at the time of Prescott's death, 
January 28, 1859, Longfellow wrote : " And I stand here at my desk 
by the window, thinking of you, and hoping you will open some 
other letter from Boston before you do mine, so that I may not be 
the first to break to you the sad news of Prescott's death. Yes, he is 
dead, — from a stroke of paralysis, on Friday last at two o'clock. Up 
to half past twelve he was well, and occupied as usual ; at two he 
was dead. We shall see that cheerful, sunny face no more! Ah me! 
what a loss this is to us all, and how much sunshine it will take out 
of the social life of Boston ! " 



What a contrast did these children of Southern Europe present 
to the Anglo-Saxon races who scattered themselves along the great 
northern division of the Western Hemisphere ! . . . No golden 
visions threw a deceitful halo around their path and beckoned them 
onwards through seas of blood to the subversion of an unoffending 
dynasty. They were content with the slow but steady progress of 
their social polity. They patiently endured the privations of the 
wilderness, watering the tree of liberty with their tears and with the 
sweat of their brow, till it took deep root in the laud and sent up its 
branches high towards the heavens ; while the communities of the 
neighboring continent, shooting up into the sudden splendors of a 
tropical vegetation, exhibited, even in their prime, the sure symptoms 
of decay. — Conquest of Peru. 



^~~^ 



JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 

( 1814-1877 ) 

Motley's principal works are The Rise of the Dutch 
Republic, History of the United Netherlands, and The Life 



180 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland. In 
the Civil War he did a noble service for the Union cause 
by his timely and powerful article on The Causes of the 
American Civil War, published in the London Times. 

Biography. — J. L. Motley was born at Dorchester, Mass., April 15, 
1814. Graduating at Harvard at the age of seventeen, he continued 
his studies at Berlin and Gottingen. At Gottingen he formed the 
acquaintance of Bismarck, and they became lifelong friends. Re- 
turning to America, he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 
1836. His first books, the novels, Morton's Hope and Merry Mount 
were unsuccessful. The Rise of the Dutch Republic, to which he 
had devoted fifteen years of study and research, came out in 1856, 
and was immediately successful in England as well as in America. 
Editions of the book were also published in France and Germany. 
He was United States Minister to Austria from 1861 to 1867, and was 
appointed Minister to England in 1869 but was recalled the next 
year. He received the honor of D. C. Iy. from Oxford. The Corre- 
spondence of John Lothrop Motley, D. C. L., edited by George Wil- 
liam Curtis, was published in 1889. Died at " Kingston Russell 
House," Dorsetshire, England, May 29, 1867. See John Lothrop Mot- 
ley, a Memoir, by O. W. Holmes, and Eminent Men by E. P. Whipple. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 

(1823-1893) 

Parkman's fame rests on his great historical work, 
France and England in North America, comprising The Con- 
spiracy of Pontiac, which is a sort of supplement to the series 
of volumes, Pioneers of France in the New World, Jesuits 
in North America, Discovery of the Great West, The Old 
Regime in Ca?iada, Montcalm and Wolf, etc. While a 
sophomore at Harvard young Parkman formed the plan of 
writing a history of the French and Indian War. This plan 
was afterward enlarged as shown by the titles of his books. 
To accomplish his work he made several visits to Kurope 



DANIEL WEBSTER 181 

and spent a summer among the Indians of the North West. 
His Orego7i Trail gives an account of his experiences with 
the Indians, and is a very valuable as well as interesting 
work. Through many difficulties and discouragements 
such as ill health, partial blindness, etc., he toiled on for 
half a century, and. finished his work a short time previous 
to his death. 

Francis Parkman was born in Boston, Mass., Sept. 23, 1823. 
Graduated at Harvard in 1844. His parents were wealthy and cul- 
tured people. He lived in Boston and vicinity all his life, and there 
he died Sept. 8, 1893. See Francis Parkman, by Justin Winsor and 
John Fiske, Atlantic Monthly, May, 1894. 

A brave, bright memory! his the stainless shield 
No shame defaces and no envy mars! 

When our far future's record is unsealed, 

His name will shine among the morning stars. 

O. W. Holmes : Francis Parkman. 



->•-<- 



DANIEL WEBSTER 

( 1782-1852 ) 

It has been my fortune to hear some of the ablest speeches of the greatest 
living orators on both sides of the water, but I must confess I never heard any- 
thing which so completely realized my conception of what Demosthenes was 
when he delivered the" Oration for the Crown." 

Edward Everett on Webster's Speech in Reply to Hayne. 

Consider, further, that this multiform eloquence, exactly as his words fell, 
became at once so much accession to permanent literature, in the strictest sense 
solid, attractive, and rich, and ask how often in the history of public life such a 
thing has been verified. — Rufus Choate. 

Webster's most famous speeches are his oration at the 
Pilgrim anniversary at Plymouth in 1820; the first Bunker 
Hill oration at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker 
Hill Monument, June 17, 1825; his Eulogy on Adams and 
Jefferson in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Aug. 2, 1826; his speech 
in reply to Hayne in U. S. Senate, Jan. 26, 1830; the sec- 



182 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

ond Bunker Hill oration at the completion of Bunker Hill 
Monument, June 17, 1843; and his speech in the famous 
Dartmouth College case before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Biography. — Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury now Frank- 
lin, N. H., Jan. 18, 1782. After the usual meager advantages of the 
district school of that time, he was prepared for college at Phillips 
Academy (Exeter) and by a private tutor, entered Dartmouth College 
and graduated in 1801. In his autobiography Webster says: "I do 
not remember when or by whom I was taught to read, because I can- 
not and never could recollect a time when I could not read the Bible. 
I suppose I was taught by my mother, or by my elder sisters. My father 
seemed to have no higher object in the world than to educate his 
children to the full extent of his very limited ability. ... In 
February, 1797, my father carried me to the Rev. Samuel Wood's in 
Boscawen, and placed me under the tuition of that most benevolent 
and excellent man. It was but half-a-dozen miles from our own 
house. On the way to Mr. Wood's my father first intimated to me 
his intention of sending me to college. The very idea thrilled my 
whole frame. He said he then lived but for his children, and if I 
would do all I could for myself, he would do what he could for me. 
I remember that I was quite overcome, and my head grew dizzy. 
The thing appeared to me so high, and the expense and sacrifice it 
was to cost my father, so great, I could only press his hands and shed 
tears. Excellent, excellent parent ! I cannot think of him, even now,, 
without turning child again." 

Young Webster was a very industrious student while at college,, 
teaching school in the winter to defray his expenses. Having com- 
pleted his course at college, he studied law at home, was a teacher in 
the Academy at Fryeburg, Maine, completed his law studies with 
Hon. Christopher Gore of Boston, and was admitted to the bar in. 
1805. Practised law in Boscawen, Portsmouth, and later in life at 
Boston. He was United States Representative from New Hampshire 
and later from Massachusetts; was twice made United States Senator 
from Massachusetts and was Secretary of State under Harrison and 
again under Fillmore. Webster's speech (7th of March) in favor of 
the " compromise " of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law alienated 
many of his northern friends. It was at this time that the poet 
Whittier wrote that scathing rebuke, his poem, Ic/iadod, in which 
occur these lines: 



DANIEL WEBSTER 183 

" All else is gone ; from those great eyes 
The soul has fled: 
When faith is lost, when honor dies, 
The man is dead ! " 

After Webster's death, however, Whittier relented, and wrote 
that beautiful poem, The Lost Occasion. Hawthorne's " a certain 
eminent statesman " in the story of The Great Stone Face is very 
severe on Webster, but Mrs. Hawthorne is more lenient, and writes : 
" It blinds me with tears of profoundest sorrow to see that Ambition 
could make him stoop. He made that fatal mistake which so many 
make ; he did evil that good might come of it, — which is an insult to 
God. . . . When I was present in court in Concord one day, he came 
in after the assembly had collected. I shall never forget his entrance. 
The throng turned round and saw him, and instinctively every one 
fell back from the door and left a broad path, up which this native 
king walked along, — with such a majesty, with such a simple state, 
that the blood tingled in my veins to see him. ... I do not believe 
so great a man is to be found here or in Europe now. ... It really 
does seem a pity to lose the image of such a man by such rapidity of 
condemnation." In his essay on Civil Disobedience, Thoreau writes: 
"Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with 
authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who 
comtemplate no essential reform in the existing government ; but for 
thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances 
at the subject. . . . Comparatively he is always strong, original, 
and, above all, practical ; still his quality is not wisdom, but pru- 
dence. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not con- 
cerned chiefly to reveal the practice that consists in wrong-doing." 

Webster loved noble literature, and, even in his childhood 
delighted in such reading as Addison's Spectator and Pope's Essay 
on Man. As to the influence of the Bible, he says : " From the time 
that, at my mother's feet, or on my father's knee, I first learned to 
lisp verses from the sacred writings, they have been my daily study 
and vigilant contemplation. If there be anything in my style or 
thoughts to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in 
instilling into my mind an early love of the Scriptures." 

A collection of Webster's Works was published in 1851, and his 
Private Correspondence in 1856. Webster's Life and Speeches, by 
Teft, Daniel Webster, by Henry Cabot L,odge in American States- 
men, Memorial of Daniel Webster, by Geo. S. Hillard, and Famous 



184 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Americans of Recent Times, by James Parton, are valuable books for 
one's library. 

The last years of Webster's life were spent at his country home, 
Marshfield, near Plymouth, Mass., where he died October 24, 1852. 

Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, 
O sleeper by the Northern sea, 
The gates of opportunity ! 
God fills the gaps of human need, 
Each crisis brings its word and deed. 
Wise men and strong we did not lack; 
But still, with memory turning back, 
In the dark hours we thought of thee, 
And thy lone grave beside the sea. 

Whittier : The Lost Occasioji. 



Sir, I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the spirit 
which is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet 
none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. 

Reply to Hayne. 

Ivet it rise till it meet the sun in his coming ; let the earliest 
light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its 
summit. — First Bunker Hill Oration. 

The Bunker Hill Monument is finished. Here it stands. For- 
tunate in the natural eminence on which it is placed — higher, in- 
finitely higher in its objects and purpose, it rises over the land and 
over the sea, and visible, at their homes, to three hundred thousand 
citizens of Massachusetts — it stands a memorial of the last, and a 
monitor to the present, and all succeeding generations. ... It is 
itself the orator of this occasion, it is not from my lips, it is not from 
any human lips, that that strain of eloquence is this day to flow, 
most competent to move and excite the vast multitudes around. 

Second Bwiker Hill Oration. 

If we cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers, 
Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and hu- 
man happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples are 
before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our path. 
Washington is in the clear upper sky. Those other stars have now 
joined the American constellation ; they circle round their centre, 



EDWARD EVERETT 185 

and the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination, 
let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend 
our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine 
Benignity. — Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, 

Washington ! " First in war, first in peace, and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen ! " Washington is all our own ! The en- 
thusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United 
States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a countryman ; 
while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his coun- 
try and its institutions. I would cheerfully put the question to-day 
to the intelligence of Europe and the world, What character of the 
century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most 
pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not, that by a suf- 
frage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be Washington! 

Second Bunker Hill Oration. 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Everett, Choate, and Mrs. 
Hawthorne say of Webster ? Name Webster's most famous orations 
and speeches. Have you read his Bunker Hill Orations and his 
Eulogy on Adams and Jeff ersonl What does Webster say of the 
Bible? of his father? What kind of a student was Webster and 
what kind of literature did he like ? What does Webster say about 
Washington ? Have you read Hawthorne's Great Stone Face and 
Whittier's poems Ichabod and The Lost Occasion? Quote fine 
thoughts from Webster's orations and speeches. 



•> 



EDWARD EVERETT 

(1794-1865) 

The variety of Mr. Everett's life and employments is but a type of the 
versatility of his powers and the wide range of his cultivation. . . . His style 
is rich and glowing, but always under the control of sound judgment and good 
taste. . . . He wrote under the inspiration of a generous and comprehensive 
patriotism, and his speeches are eminently suited to create and sustain a just 
and high national sentiment. — George S. Hillard. 

By the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard in 1824 on 
Literature in America, Everett's fame as a scholarly and 
polished orator was permanently established. Of his other 
orations and addresses his eulogies on Washington, Adams, 
Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Webster, and his 



186 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

orations at Dorchester, Plymouth, Concord, Charleston, 
Lexington, and Gettysburg, are the most celebrated. 

Biography. — Edward Everett, the son of a Boston clergyman, 
was born at Dorchester, Mass., April 11, 1794. He graduated at 
Harvard, where he remained as tutor for two years. Studied 
theology and became pastor of Brattle Street Unitarian Church in 
1813. Appointed professor of Greek at Harvard the following year; 
to prepare for this work he spent four years in Europe, and filled 
this position from 1819 to 1824. Edited North American Review 
during the same period. From 1825 to 1835 he was United States 
Representative from Massachusetts. Minister to England from 1841 
to 1845. President of Harvard College from 1846 to 1849, and on the 
death of Daniel Webster in 1852, he became Secretary of State. He 
was elected United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1853, but 
on account of ill-health retired the following year. 

Everett's oration on Washington, one of the most eloquent 
orations in the English language, was originally delivered at Boston,. 
February 22, 1856. It was afterward repeated more than one hun- 
dred and fifty times in different cities of the United States, and the 
proceeds amounted to more than one hundred thousand dollars, 
which Mr. Everett generously gave to the fund to purchase Mount 
Vernon, Washington's home. 

His Orations and Speeches, four volumes, were published in 
1869. On account of his intellectual power and dignity of character 
and his rare and varied culture, Everett has been called the prince 
of American orators. As a philanthropist his life was full of gener- 
ous and noble deeds. His last public address was in behalf of the 
suffering citizens of Savannah, and was given in Faneuil Hall only 
a few days previous to his death, which occurred at his home in 
Boston, January 15, 1865. 

Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, 

Art, history, song, — what meanings lie in each 
Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre, 

And poured their mingling music through his speech. 

Holmes : Edward Everett. 



Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel,, 
the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a 
future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold "it pur- 
suing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. 
Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises 



CHARLES SUMNER 187 

them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for 
shore. ... Is it possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, 
so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there have gone 
forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so im- 
portant, a promise yet to be fulfilled so glorious? — Oration at 
Plymouth. 

There is a modest private mansion on the bank of the Potomac, 
the abode of George Washington and Martha his beloved, his loving, 
faithful wife. It boasts no spacious portal nor gorgeous colonnade, 
nor massy elevation, nor storied tower. . . . No gilded dome swells 
from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam ; but the 
love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal 
sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid 
and unselfish warrior, — the magistrate who knew no glory but his 
country's good ; to that he returned happiest when his work was 
done. There he lived in noble simplicity ; there he died in glory 
and peace. While -it stands the latest generations of the grateful 
children of America will make this pilgrimage to it as to a shrine; 
and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the memory and the name of 
Washington shall shed an eternal glory on the spot. — Eulogy on 
Washington. 

Literary Gleaning. — What does Hillard say of Everett and 
his speeches? Tell about Everett's orations and speeches. Have 
you read Dr. Holmes's poem, Edward Everett? Give a sketch of 
his life, and quote fine passages from his writings. 



-^ 



CHARLES SUMNER. 

(1811-1874) 

O State so passing rich before, 

Who now shall doubt thy highest claim? 
The world that counts thy jewels o'er 
Shall longest pause at Sumner's name ! 

Whittier : Sumner. 
The value to the country of so pure and noble a life, and of such mag- 
nificent and long-sustained labor to such lofty ends, can scarcely be exag- 
gerated. The nation is honored which has given birth to such a man and 
kept him in the public councils for a quarter of a century. 

J. E. Motley on Sumner. 

Sumner's oration at Boston, July 4, 1845, on The 
True Grandeur of Nations, made him famous. Of this 



188 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

oration and the orator, Carl Schurz wrote: " It was a plea 
for universal peace, a poetic rhapsody on the wrongs and 
horrors of war, and the beauties of concord. . . . The 
whole man revealed himself in that utterance — a soul full 
of the native instinct of justice, an overpowering sense of 
right and wrong which made him look at the problem of 
human society from the lofty plane of an ideal mortality, 
which fixed for him, high beyond the existing condition of 
things, the aims for which he must strive, and inspired and 
fired his ardent nature for the struggle." 

Among Sumner's speeches in the United States Senate 
The Crime Against Kansas, The Landmark of Freedom, 
and The Barbarism of Slavery are the most notable. 

Biography. — Charles Sumner, statesman and reformer, was born 
in Boston, Mass., January 6, 1811. Graduated at Harvard, adopted 
the legal profession, wrote for the American Jurist, and was reporter 
for the United States Circuit Court from 1835 to 1837. In Europe 
from 1837 to 1840. In 1851, Sumner was elected to the United 
States Senate to succeed Webster, who had been chosen a member 
of the Cabinet. In 1856 while Sumner was seated at his desk in the 
Senate, he was assaulted in a most cowardly manner by Preston A. 
Brooks, a Representative from South Carolina, who with a heavy 
gutta percha cane dealt a series of blows on Sumner's head. 
Although Sumner lived many years, he never fully recovered from 
the effects of these brutal blows. He was re-elected to the Senate in 
1857, but hoping for complete recovery by rest and medical treat- 
ment, he spent some time in France, returning to his duties in the 
Senate in 1859. In 1860 he made his masterly speech on the Bar- 
barism of Slavery, and in 1861, was made chairman of the committee 
on foreign affairs. 

Charles Sumner was the poet Longfellow's most intimate 
friend. Part "IV" of Longfellow's poem, Three Friends of Mine, 
refers to Sumner. Sumner's death called forth Longfellow's beau- 
tiful tribute to his friend, the poem Charles Sumner, closing : 

" Were a star quenched on high, 

For ages would its light, 
Still traveling downward from the sky, 
Shine on our mortal sight. 



CHARLES SUMNER 189* 

" So when a great man dies, 
For years beyond our ken, 
The light he leaves behind him lies 
Upon the paths of men." 

In a place of honor in " the library" of the Longfellow home,, 
are the works of Charles Sumner, fifteen volumes, and his biography 
by Pierce. Sumner died suddenly in Washington, D. C, March 11, 
1874, and his grave is in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, only a short distance 
from the grave of Longfellow. 

For all his life was poor without, 

O Nature, make the last amends ! 
Train all thy flowers his grave about, 

And make thy singing-birds his friends ! 
Revive again, thou summer rain, 

The broken turf upon his bed ! 
Breathe^ summer wind, thy tenderest strain 

Of low, sweet music overhead ! 

WHITTIER. 



Honor to the memory of our Fathers ! May the turf lie gently 
on their sacred graves! But let us not in words only, but in deeds 
also, testify our reverence for their name. Let us imitate what in 
them was lofty, pure and good ; let us from them learn to bear hard- 
ships and privation. Let us, who now reap in strength what they 
sowed in weakness, study to enhance the inheritance we have re- 
ceived. — The True Grandeur of Nations. 

The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, 
enlightened, and decorated by the intellect of man. The truest 
tokens of this grandeur in a state are the diffusion of the greatest 
happiness among the greatest number, and that passionless God-like 
Justice, which controls the relations of the state to other states, and 
to all the people, who are committed to its charge. 

The True Grandeur of Nations. 

In the name of the Constitution, which has been outraged — of 
the Laws trampled down — of Justice banished — of Humanity de- 



I would not be bound even by the silken cords of gratitude to that 
which would render me indisposed to accept the deeper truth that may dawni 
upon my apprehension to-morrow.— Horace Greeley. 



190 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

graded — of Peace destroyed — of Freedom crushed to the earth ; and 
in the name of the Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect Free- 
dom, I make this last appeal.— The Crime Against Kansas. 

No true and permanent fame can be founded, except in labors 
which promote the happiness of mankind. — Fame and Glory. 

The True Grandeur of Nations is in those qualities which 
constitute the true greatness of the individual. 

The True Grandeur of Nations. 

Note. — See Eminent Men, by E. P. Whipple, and Memorial 
and Biographical Sketches, by James Freeman Clarke. 

Literary Gleaning.— What does Motley say about Sumner? 
Give a sketch of Sumner's life. Tell about his orations and 
speeches. Have you read Tiie True Grandeur of Nations ? Tell 
about the friendship between Longfellow and Sumner. Have you 
read Longfellow's poems, Charles Sumner and Three Friends of 
Mine, Whittier's poem, Sumner, and Dr. Holmes's Hymn at the 
Funeral Services of Charles Sumner? 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 

(1811-1884) 

He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, 
And, underneath their soft and flowery words, 
Heard the cold serpent hiss ; therefore he went 
And humbly joined him to the weaker part, 
Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content 
So he could be the nearer to God's heart, 
And feel its solemn pulses sending blood 
Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good. 

Lowell : Sonnet, Wendell Phillips. 

Golden-mouthed Phillips, whose eloquence charmed even his adversaries, 
whose whisper restrained great assemblies. . . . The most finished orator of 
our time, he was also one of its most daring and uncompromising leaders. 

Julia Ward Howe. 

By an unpremeditated speech in Faneuil Hall, Boston, 
Dec. 8, 1837, Wendell Phillips, then a young man of twenty- 
six, sprang into immediate fame as the most persuasive 



If you would save a nation, you must sanctify it as well as fortify it. 

Charles Sumner. 



WENDELL, PHILLIPS 191 

orator America has ever produced. "Never before, I ven- 
ture to say, did the walls of the old 'Cradle of Liberty' 
echo to a finer strain of eloquence," says Oliver Johnson, 
who was one of the auditors. Besides his anti-slavery 
speeches and those on other reforms, such as the prohibi- 
tion of the rum traffic, equal rights for women, etc., the 
most notable addresses of Wendell Phillips are his lecture, 
The Lost Arts, and his eulogies, Daniel O'Connell, Tous- 
saint L'Ouverture, and Charles Sumner, and his Phi Beta 
Kappa oration, The Scholar in a Republic, delivered at Har- 
vard on the Centennial anniversary of the Society, June 30, 
1881. 

Biography. — Wendell Phillips, orator and reformer, was born in 
Boston, Mass., No?. 29, 1811. Graduated at Harvard. Studied law, 
and was admitted to the bar in 1834. Phillips and Sumner were 
schoolmates in Boston Latin School, at Harvard, and in the Law 
School, and were lifelong friends. Phillips joined the Abolitionists 
in 1835. He was a delegate to the World's Anti-Slavey Conference 
in London in 1840, and pleaded eloquently for the admission of 
women to membership. Comparing the reformer and the politician, 
he said : " The reformer is careless of numbers, disregards popu- 
larity, and deals only with ideas, conscience, and common sense. He 
feels with Copernicus, that as God waited long for an interpreter, so he 
can wait for his followers. He neither expects nor is over-anxious for 
immediate success. The politician dwells in an everlasting Now. 
His motto is 'Success' — his aim, votes. His object is not abso- 
lute right, but like Solon's laws, as much right as the people will 
sanction." Speaking of the mistake of the makers of our Constitu- 
tion in agreeing that the slave-trade should continue twenty years, 
Phillips said : " God gives manhood but one clew to success — equal 
and exact justice ; that he guarantees shall be always expediency. 
Deviate one hair's breadth — plant only the tiniest seed of conces- 
sion — you know not how 'many and tall branches of mischief shall 
grow therefrom.' " On the temperance question, after showing that 
License had been tried for centuries under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances, and had signally failed, he said of Prohibition : " Where- 
ever it has been tried, it has succeeded. Friends who know claim 
this : enemies who have been for a dozen years ruining teeth by 
biting files, confess it by their lack of argument, and lack of facts. 



192 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

except when they invent them." Of Boston, he said : " I love inex- 
pressibly these streets of Boston, over whose pavements my mother 
held up tenderly my baby feet; and if God grants me time enough, 
I will make them too pure to bear the footsteps of a slave." 

To know Wendell Phillips, students must read Life and Times 
of Wendell Phillips, by George L,. Austin, Garrison and His Times 
by Oliver Johnson, and especially that inspiring book, Wendell 
Phillips, the Agitator, by Carlos Martyn. Wendell Phillips died at 
his Boston home, February 2, 1884. The grave of Wendell Phillips 
is in the beautiful suburb of Milton, where he and his wife often 
spent their summers. His friend, Theodore D. Weld, writes : "Wen- 
dell did not care to lie amid the beat of hurrying feet, but wished to 
be out where the birds sing and the flowers bloom." 

How at the last this great heart conquered all 
We know who watched above his sacred pall — 
One day a living king he faced a crowd 
Of critic foes; over the dead king bowed 
A throng of friends who yesterday were those 
Who thought themselves, and whom the world thought, foes. 
Nora Perry. 

I urge on college-bred men that, as a class, they fail in republi- 
can duty when they allow others to lead in the agitation of the great 
social questions which stir and educate the age. . . . The freer a 
nation becomes, the more utterly democratic in its form, the more 
need of this outside agitation. Parties and sects laden with the 
burden of securing their own success cannot afford to risk new ideas. 
... The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no 
bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but 
truth, — to tear a question open and riddle it with light. . . . These 
'agitations' are the opportunities and the means God offers us to 
refine the taste, mould the character, lift the purpose, and educate 
the moral sense of the masses, on whose intelligence and self-respect 
rests the State. — The Scholar in a Republic. 

How feeble words seem here ! How can I hope to utter what 
your hearts are full of? I fear to disturb the harmony which his life 
breathes round his home. ... I feel honored to stand under such 
a roof. Hereafter you will tell children standing at your knee, " I 
saw John Brown buried — I sat under his roof." Thank God for 
such a master. Could we have asked a nobler representative of the 



HORACE MANN 193 

Christian North putting her foot on the accursed system of slavery? 
As time passes, and these hours float back into history, men will see 
against the clear December sky that gallows, and round it thousands 
of armed men guarding Virginia from her slaves! On the other 
side, the serene brow of that calm old man, as he stoops to kiss the 
child of a forlorn race. — Burial of John Brown. 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Lowell and Julia Ward Howe 
say of Wendell Phillips? Tell about his first speech in Faneuil Hall. 
What does Oliver Johnson say of this speech ? Have you read The 
Lost Arts and The Scholar in a Republic? Give a sketch of the life 
of Wendell Phillips. What does he say about the " reformer," the 
'•politician," "justice," "prohibition," "Boston"? Have you read 
Carlos Martyn's Wendell Phillips, the Agitator? Quote fine pas- 
sages from Phillips's orations and lectures. 



HORACE MANN 
(1796-1859) 

"Rarely have such great abilities, unselfish devotion, and brilliant success 
been so united in a single life." 

In a republic, ignorance is a crime ; and private immorality is not less an 
opprobrium to the state than it is guilt in the perpetrator.— Horace Mann. 

The principal works of Horace Mann are Lectures on 
Education, Slavery: Letters and Speeches, Lectures on 
Lntemperance, twelve An?iual Reports, Thoughts for a 
Young Man, and Powers and Duties of Women. 

As Wendell Phillips gave up all hopes of social or 
political preferment when he espoused the cause of the 
hated Abolitionists, so did Horace Mann when he decided 
in 1837 to devote his life to the cause of education, and 
became Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. 
Of all his friends, one only, Dr. W. E. Channing, approved 
his noble choice, and wrote to him, in part, as follows: ''I 
understand that you have given yourself to the cause of 
education in our commonwealth. I rejoice in it. Nothing 



194 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

could give me greater pleasure. I have long desired that 
some one uniting all your qualifications should devote 
himself to this work. You could not find a nobler station. 
Government has no nobler one to give. You must allow 
me to labor under you according to my opportunities. If 
at any time I can aid you, you must let me know, and I 
shall be glad to converse with you always about your 
operations. When will the low, degrading party quarrels 
of the country cease, and the better minds come to think 
what can be done toward a substantial, generous improve- 
ment of the community? ' My ear is pained, my very soul 
is sick' with the monotonous yet furious clamors about 
currency, banks, etc., when the spiritual interests of the 
community seem hardly to be recognized as having any 
reality. If we can but turn the wonderful energy of this 
people into a right channel, what a new heaven and earth 
must be realized among us!" 

Biography. — Horace Mann, educator and philanthropist, was 
horn in the town of Franklin, Mass., May 4, 1796. His parents were 
poor but intelligent and upright in character. Of his childhood he 
writes: "I regard it as an irretrievable misfortune that my child- 
liood was not a happy one. By nature I was exceedingly elastic and 
"buoyant, but the poverty of my parents subjected me to continual pri- 
vations. ... I do not remember the time when I began to work. 
T3ven my play-days, — not play-days, for I never had any, — but my 
play-hours were earned by extra exertion, finishing tasks early to 
;gain a little leisure for boyish sports. . . . My teachers were very 
good people but they were very poor teachers. . . . With the in- 
finite universe around us, all ready to be daguerreotyped upon our 
souls, we were never placed at the right focus to receive its glorious 
images. I had an intense natural love of beauty, and of its expres- 
sion in nature and in the fine arts. As ' a poet was in Murray lost,' 
•so at least an amateur poet, if not an artist, was lost in me. How 
often, when a boy. did I stop, like Akenside's hind, to gaze at the 



Next in importance to freedom and justice, is popular education, without 
■which, neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained.— Garfield. 



HORACE MANN 195 

glorious sunset ; and lie down upon my back, at night, on the earth, 
to look at the heavens. Yet with all our senses and our faculties glow- 
ing and receptive, how little were we taught. ... I had a love of 
knowledge which nothing could repress. An inward voice raised its 
plaint forever in my heart for something nobler and better. And if 
my parents had not the means to give me knowledge, they intensified 
the love of it. They always spoke of learning and learned men with 
■enthusiasm and a kind of reverence. I was taught to take care of the 
few books we had, as though there was something sacred about 
them. I never dog's-eared one in my life, nor profanely scribbled 
upon the title pages, margin or fly-leaf, and would as soon have stuck 
a pin through my flesh as through the pages of a book. . . . The 
town, however, owned a small library. . . . Had I the power, I 
would scatter libraries over the whole land, as the sower sows his 
wheat field. . . . Whatever may have been my shortcomings, I can 
still say that I have always been exempt from what may be called com- 
mon vices. . . . I never swore — indeed profanity was always most 
disgusting and repulsive to me. And (I consider it always a climax) 
I never used the ' vile weed ' in any form. I early formed the reso- 
lution to be a slave to no habit." A graduate of Brown University, a 
successful lawyer, with his experiences in the Mass. Legislature, both 
House and Senate, his active work in leading reforms of his day — anti- 
slaver}-, temperance, equal rights for women, Horace Mann was well 
qualified for his great life-work, which began in 1837, when he decided 
to give his life to the cause of education. His twelve Annual Reports 
<as Sec. of Mass. B'd of Ed.) tell the story of the conflicts and victories 
■of these years. He was eminently successful in making his own 
convictions the convictions of the people to whom he appealed. In 
his call for the first National Convention of teachers in 1850, he gives 
some of the principles of his educational creed: " No social distinc- 



Education is the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the 
thoughtful man. — Wendell Phillips. 

Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best 
in quality and infinite in quantity.— Horace Mann. 

Education and freedom are the only sources of true greatness and true 
happiness among the people.— John Bright. 

Books, schools, education, are the scaffolding by means of which God 
builds up a human soul. — Humboldt. 

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. 

Edward Everett. 



196 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

tioiis have the faintest claim to consideration that are not based oa 
moral and intellectual differences. Between the educated and the ig- 
norant, the moral and the immoral, there can be no companionship, 
because on neither side would there be sympathy or enjoyment. . . . 
The larger and universal education will be the conditions of the true 
brotherhood of humanity. . . . He takes but a limited view of 
Christian ethics who does not strive to incorporate them into the sen- 
timents of youth. . . . All good men and angels are co-workers with 
our Father in Heaven for the improvement of mankind." In 1843 
Mr. Mann visited a large number of schools in all the leading coun- 
tries of Europe, an account of which is found in his seventh Annual 
Report. In 1848 he was called to fill the place in Congress made va- 
cant by the death of John Quincy Adams. He was president of An- 
tioch College, Yellow Springs, O., from 1852 until his death, which 
occurred at Yellow Springs, Aug. 2, 1859. On the college campus a 
suitable monument has been erected on which are carved the memor- 
able closing words of his last commencement address to the students 
of Antioch College: "I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts 
these, my parting words, be ashamed to die until you have won some 
victory for humanity." See Life of Horace Mann, by his Wife, Hor- 
ace Mann in Barnard's Educational Biography, Winship's Horace 
Mann, and Horace Mann (an address) by Dr. W. T. Harris. 

Note. — Horace Mann's body now rests by that of his first wife 
in the North Burial Grounds, Providence, R. I. His first wife was a 
daughter of Dr. Asa Messer, third president of Brown University. 
His second wife was Mary Peabody, one of three remarkable sisters, 
the other two being Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Elizabeth Pea- 
body. In front of the State House on Beacon Hill, Boston, are two 
statues, one on either side of the terraced approach. One is the 
statue of Webster ; the other of Horace Mann. 

Find and memorize the following selections from Horace 
Mann's famous lecture, Thoughts for a Young Man* : 

1. Beneficence is god-like, and he who does most good to his 
fellow-man is the Master of Masters, and has learned the Art of Arts. 
Enrich and embellish the universe as you will, it is only a fit temple 
for the heart that loves truth with a supreme love. 



"■-Thoughts for a Young Man is a treasure, and should be owned and 
loved by every young person. Published by I Y ee & Shepard, Boston. Price, 50 ets. 



HORACE MANN 197 

2. We were created in ignorance and in weakness, for the very 
purpose of enabling us to feel the conscious delight of gathering in 
knowledge, and of growing stronger in virtue. 

3. Every nerve that can thrill with pleasure, can also agonize 
with pain. Instead of hymnings of bliss, there may be howlings of 
despair. If there is an infinity of truth, there is an infinity of error 
also ; and the empyrean of possible blessedness is not more high 
than the abysses of possible woe are deep. 

4. The ploughman that turns the clod may be a Cincinnatus 
or a Washington, or he may be brother to the clod he turns. It is 
every way creditable to handle the yard-stick and to measure tape ; 
the only discredit consists in having a soul whose range of thought 
is as short as the stick and as narrow as the tape. 

5. Whoever yields to temptation debases himself with a de- 
basement from which he can never arise. ... A man can be 
wronged and live ;_ but the unresisted, unchecked impulse to do 
wrong is the first and the second death. 

Literary Gleaning. — What does Horace Mann say of" ignor- 
ance" and "immorality"? What does Dr. Channing say in his 
letter about "education," "party quarrels," "clamors about cur- 
rency," " energy of this people " ? What does Horace Mann say of 
his " childhood," " teachers," " the infinite universe," " glorious sun- 
set," " books," " libraries," " vile weed " ? What does he say about 
" Christian ethics," " good men and angels " ? Quote his " parting 
words ". Have you seen the " two statues " on Beacon Hill, Boston ? 
Have you read Thoughts for a Young Man ? Tell about Dr. W. T. 
Harris, Dr. E. E. White, Colonel Parker, and other noted educators 
of our county. Quote what Garfield, Mann, Phillips, Everett, 
Bright, and Humboldt say of education. For additional quotations 
on education see Irish's Treasured Thoughts, page 1 24. 



^•^ 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Abbott, Jacob, b. Hallowell, Me., Nov. 14, 1803. Graduate of 
Bowdoin. A writer for the young. Author of the Young Christian^ 
4 vols., the Rollo Books, 28 vols., the Lucy Books, 6 vols., Science for 
the Young, 4 vols., etc. Died, Farmington, Me., Oct. 31, 1879. 

Abbott. J. S. C, clergyman, b. Brunswick, Me., Sept. 18, 1805.. 
Bro. of J. A. Graduate of Bowdoin and Andover. Author of Prac- 
tical Christianity , Kings and Queens, The French Revolution, The 
History of Napoleon Bonaparte, History of Frederick the Great,. 
etc. Died, Fair Haven, Ct, June 17, 1877. 

Abbott, Lyman, clergyman, b. Roxbury, Mass., Dec. 18, 1835. Suc- 
ceeded H. W. Beecher as Ed. of Christian Union and as pastor of 
Plymouth Ch. Leading works, fesus of Nazareth, An Aid of Faith ,. 
and Life of H. W. Beecher. 

Agassiz, Louis J. R., naturalist, b. Motier, Switzerland, May 28,, 
1807. Came to U. S. in 1847. Professor in Harvard. Author of 
History of the Fresh - Water Fishes, Methods of study in Natural 
History, A fourney in Brazil, etc. Died, Cambridge, Mass., 1873.. 
" His grave in Mt. Auburn is marked by a boulder from the glacier 
of the Aar, and shaded by pine-trees brought from Switzerland". 
See Longfellow's poems, Three Friends of Mine and The Fiftieth 
Birthday of Agassiz. Also Louis Agassiz, His Life and Corre- 
spondence, by Elizabeth C. Agassiz, and Emijient Men, by E. P* 
Whipple. 

Alcott, A. Bronson, educator, b. Wolcott, Ct, Nov. 29, 1799. One 
of the prime movers in the "Fruitlands" enterprise. A founder 
of the Concord Sch. of Phil. Contributor to Dial. Wrote Tablets, 
Concord Days, etc. Died, Boston, Mar. 4, 1888. 

Alcott, Louisa M., b. Germantown, Pa., Nov. 29, 1832. Dau. of A. 
B. A. Served as a hospital nurse in Washington in 1862-63. Hos- 
pital Sketches, an account of her experiences, was her first success- 
ful work. Most popular works, Little Women, An Old-Fashioned 
Girl, Little Men, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Under the Lilacs, 
fack and fill, and fo's Boys. Died, Boston, Mar. 6, 1888. See her 
Life, Letters, and fournals, edited by Ednah D. Cheney. 

Alden, Mrs. Isabella [Macdonald], "Pansy," b. 1841, N. Y. Writer 
of books for young people. Author of Four Girls at Chautauqua, 
Chautauqua Girls at Home, etc. 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, b. Portsmouth, N. H., Nov. 11, 1836. The 
Bells and Baby Bell are his best known poems. Prose works, The 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 199 

Story of a Bad Boy, Marjorie Daw, Prudence Palfrey, Mercedes : A 
Tragedy, Two Bites at a Cherry, An Old Town by the Sea, etc. 

Audubon. John James, naturalist, b. near N. O., La., May 4, 1780. 
Educated in France. Author of The Birds of America, Ornitholog- 
ical Biography, and Quadrupeds of America. Died N. Y. City, 
Jan. 27, 1851. 

Austin, Jane [Goodwin], b. Worcester, Mass., Feb. 25, 1831. Lead- 
ing works, Standish of Standish, Betty Alden, A Nameless Nobleman, 
and The First -Born Daughter of the Pilgrims. Died, Boston, 
Mar. 30, 1894. 

Barr. Amelia E. [Huddleston], b. Lancashire, Eng., Mar. 29, 1831. 
Married and came to America. Author of A Daughter of Fife, Master 
of His Fate, A Bow of Orange Ribbon, and Remember the Alamo. 

Bascom, John, educator, b. Genoa, N. Y., May 1, 1827. Graduated 
Williams. Pres. of Univ. of Mich, from 1874 to 1887. Best known 
books, Political Economy, Philosophy of English Literature, Natural 
Theology, and Problems in Philosophy. 

Bates, Arlo, journalist, b. E. Machinas, Me., Dec. 16, 1850. Grad- 
uate of Bowdoin. Author of A Wheel of Fire, Sonnets in Shadow,, 
A Lad's Love, The Philistines, etc. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, clergyman, b. Litchfield, Ct., June 24, 1813. 
Graduate of Amherst, and Lane Seminary. Was pastor of Plymouth,, 
Ch., Brooklyn, from its organization until his death. Edited the Ln~ 
dependent and later the Christian Union. A great lecturer. Author 
of Lectures to Young Men, Star Papers, Eyes and Ears, Life of 
Jesus the Christ, Yale Lectures on Preaching, Evolution and Re- 
ligion, etc. Died, Brooklyn, Mar. 8, 1887. His grave is in Green- 
wood Cemetery. 

Beecher, Lyman, clergyman, b. New Haven, Ct, Oct. 12, 1775. 
Graduate of Yale. Father of H. W. B. and Mrs. H. B. Stowe. Best 
known writings, Temperance and Political Atheism. Died, Brooklyn, 
Jan. 10, 1863. 

Beers, Henry A., educator, b. Buffalo, N. Y. July 2, 1847. Grad- 
uate of Yale. Author of Odds and Ends and The Thankless Muse, 
both poetry, and of A Century of Am. Lit., Life of N. P. Willis, 
and Outline Sketches of Eng. and Am. Lit. 

Bellamy Edward, b. Chicopee Falls, Mass., Mar. 26, 1850. Edu- 
cated at Union and in Ger. Author of Six to One, Dr. Heidenhoff s 
Process, Miss Ludington's Sister, and Looking Backward, which had 
an enormous sale both at home and abroad and was the cause of the 
founding of " Nationalist Clubs " in the U. S. 



200 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Benjamin, Samuel G. W., b. Argos, Greece, Feb. 13, 1837. Grad- 
uate of Williams. Minister to Persia. Wrote Constantinople, The 
Choice of Paris, Persia a?id the Persians, etc. 

Boker, Geo. H., b. Phil., Pa., Oct. 6, 1823. Graduate of Princeton. 
Minister to Constantinople, later to Russia. Author of the dramas 
Francesca da Rimini, Anne Boleyn, and The Betrothal. Wrote 
Poems of the War, The Book of the Dead, etc. Died, Phil., Pa., 
Jan. 2. 1890. 

Boyesen. Hjalmar Hjorth, educator, b. Fredericksvaern, Norway, 
Sept. 23, 1848. Educated at Leipsic and the Univ. of Norway. Re- 
moved to U. S. in 1868. Author of Gunnar, Falconberg, Goethe and 
Schiller, Social Strug glers, The Mammon of Unrighteousness, etc. 
Died, N. Y. City, Oct. 4, 1895. 

Bradstreet, Anne [Dudley], "the Tenth Muse," b. Northampton, 
Eng., 1612. A volume of her poems was published in 1650. Chiefly 
interesting as the first volume of poetry from a N. E. pen. Wrote 
other verses and prose. Died, Andover, Mass., Sept. 16, 1672. 

Brooks, Maria [Gowen], "Maria del Occidente," b. Bedford, Mass. 
about 1795. Author of Judith Esther and Other Poems, Zophiel, 
and Idomen. Died, Matanzas, Cuba, Nov. 11, 1845. 

Brooks, Phillips, clergyman, b. Boston, Dec. 13, 1835. Graduate 
of Harvard. Rector of Trinity Ch., Boston, and Bishop of Mass. 
Wrote Lectures on Preaching, The Influence of Jesus, and several 
vols, of sermons. Died, Boston, Jan. 23, 1893. 

Browne, Chas. F., "Artemus Ward," humorist, b. Waterford, Me., 
Apr. 23, 1834. Author of Artemus Ward, His Book; Artemus Ward, 
His Travels ; and Artemus Ward in London. Died, Southampton, 
Eng., Mar. 6, 1867. 

Burnett, Frances E. [Hodgson], b. Manchester, Eng., Nov. 24, 
1849. Removed to U. S. with her parents at the close of the Civil 
War. Author of That Lass <?' Lowrie's, Hawortli's, A Fair Barba- 
rian, Through One Administrate, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Sara 
Crewe, Edithds Burglar, Little Saint Elizabeth, Two Little Pil- 
grims' Progress, A Lady of Quality, etc. 

Burroughs, John, b. Roxbury, N. Y., Apr. 3, 1837. Author of Notes 
on Walt Whitman, Wake Robin, Winter Sunshine, Birds and Poets, 
Locusts and Wild Honey, Pepacton, Fresh Fields, Signs and Seasons, 
Indoor Studies, Riverby, Little Nature Studies for Little People, 
etc. "Riverby" is the name of his home on the Hudson. 

Bushnell, Horace, clergyman, b. New Preston, Ct, Apr. 14, 1802. 
Graduate of Yale. Author of God in Christ, Christ in Theology, 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 201 

Work and Play, Nature and the Supernatural, etc. Died, Hartford, 
Ct, Feb. 17, 1876. 

Butterworth, Hezekiah, journalist, b. Warren, R. I., Dec. 22, 1839. 
Editor of the Youth's Companion. Author of Zig- Zag Journeys, 
Poems for Christmas, Easter, and New Year's, The Patriot School- 
master, etc. 

Cable, Geo. W., b. New Orleans, Da., Oct. 12, 1844. Author of 
Old Creole Days, The Grandissimes, The Creoles of Louisiana, The 
Silent South, The Negro Question, Life of William Gilmore Simms, 
etc. 

Carleton, Will, b. Hudson, Mich., Oct. 21, 1845. Most popular 
poems, Betsey and I are Out and Over the Hill to the Poorhouse. 
Author of Farm Ballads, Farm Legends, City Ballads and City 
Legends. 

Cheever, Gep. B., clergyman, b. Hallowell, Me., Apr. 17, 1807. 
Graduate of Bowdoin. Author of The Hill Difficulty, Guilt of 
Slavery, etc. Died, Englewood, N. J., Oct. 1, 1890. 

Child, Lydia Maria [Francis], b. Bedford, Mass., Feb. 11, 1802, 
Wrote An Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans, the 
first anti- slavery book published in U. S. Assisted her husband in 
publishing the National Anti- Slavery Standard. Author of The 
Rebels, or Boston Before the Revolution, Philothea, Aspirations of 
the World, etc. Died, Wayland, Mass., Oct. 20, 1880. 

Choate, Rufus, lawyer, b. Essex, Mass., Oct., 1, 1799. Resided 
in Boston after 1832. Most noted oration is his Eulogy on Webster, 
delivered at Dartmouth. His Writings also Addresses and Orations 
have been published posthumously. Died, Halifax, N. S., July 13. 
1859. 

Clarke, James Freeman, clergyman, b. Hanover, N. H., Apr. 4, 1810. 
Graduate of Harvard. Leading works, Self -Culture, Ten Great 
Religions, and Vexed Questions in Theology. Died, Jamaica Plain, 
Mass., June 8, 1888. See James Freeman Clarke, by E. E. Hale. 

Clemens, Samuel L., "Mark Twain," humorist, b. Florida, Mo., 
Nov. 30, 1835. Successively printer, pilot on the Miss. R., journalist 
and lecturer. Author of Lnnocents Abroad, Roughing Lt, Tom 
Sawyer, Prince and Pauper, Huckleberry Finn f A Connecticut 
Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Pudd'nhead Wilson, etc. 

Cleveland, Rose Elizabeth, b. Fayetteville, N. Y., 1846. Sister of 
Pres. Cleveland. Mistress of the White House until the President's 
marriage. Author of The Long Run and George Eliot's Poetry 
■and Other Stories. 



202 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Coffin. Charles Carleton, b. Boscawen, N. II., July 26, 1823. Author 
of books for young folks, The Boys off6, The Boys of6i, Days and 
Nights on the Battlefield, Following the Flag, The Story of Liberty,, 
Old Times in the Colonies, The Daughter of the Revolution, and lives. 
of Lincoln and Garfield. Died Brookline, Mass., Mar. 2, 1896. 

Collyer, Robert, pastor Cli. of the Messiah, N. Y. City, b. Keigh- 
ley, Yorkshire, Eng., Dec. 8, 1823. Came to U. S. and served as a 
Methodist preacher. Became a Unitarian. Author of Nature and 
Life, The Simple Truth, Talks to Young Men, etc. 

Conway. Moncure D., clergyman, b. Stafford Co., Va., Mch. 17, 1832:. 
Anti-slavery writer and lecturer. Author of Tracts for To-day, Tes- 
timonies Concerning Slavery, Pine and Palm, Thomas Carlyle, Na- 
thaniel Hawthorne, etc. 

Cooke, John Esten, b. Winchester, Va., Nov. 3, 1830. Author of 
Leather Stocking and Silk, Life of Stonewall Jackson, Life of Robert 
E. Lee, My Lady Pokahontas, etc. Died, Clarke Co., Va., Sept. 27, 1886. 

Cooke, Rose [Terry], b. W. Hartford, Conn., Feb. 17, 1827. Author 
of Poems by Rose Terry, Happy Dodd, Somebody 's Neighbors, The 
Sphinx's Children and Other People, etc. Died, Pittsfield, Mass.,. 
July 18, 1892. 

Cox, Samuel S., b. Zanesville, O., Sept. 30, 1824. Edited a news- 
paper at Col., O. Member of Congress from Ohio, and later from 
N. Y. Minister to Turkey. Humorous lecturer and writer. Was 
called "Sunset Cox" from having written in praise of Ohio sunsets. 
Author of The Buckeye Abroad, Puritanism in Politics, Why We 
Laugh, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, and Diversions of a 
Diplomat in Turkey. Died, N. Y. City, Sept. 10, 1889. 

Cranch, C. P., painter, b. Alexandria, Va., Mch. 8, 1813. Contrib- 
uted to the Dial. Author of Poems, The Last of the Huggermug- 
gers, The Bird and the Bell, Ariel and Caliban, etc. Died, Cam- 
bridge, Mass., Jan. 20, 1892. 

Crawford, F. Marion, b. Baths of Lucca, Italy, Aug. 2, 1854. Son 
of Thomas C, the Am. sculptor, and nephew of Julia Ward Howe. 
Author of Mr. Isaacs, Zoroaster, Saracinesca, Casa Braccio, With 
the Immortals, Greifenstein, The Witch of Prague, The Novel: 
What It Is, Adam Johnstone 's Son, etc. 

Croly, Jane [Cunningham], "Jennie June," b. Market Harborough,, 
Eng., Dec. 19. 1831. Came to U. S. in 1841. Edited Demoresfs Mag. 
Founder of " Sorosis." Author of Talks on Women's Topics, For 
Better or Worse, Three Manuals for Work, etc. 

Curtis. Geo. W., b. Providence, R. L, Feb. 24, 1824. Traveled in 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 203= 

Europe and the East. Inaugurated the "Editor's Easy Chair" of 
Harper's Mag. Author of Nile Notes of an Howadji, Lotus-Eating, 
The Potiphar Papers, Prne and I, James Russell Lowell, Life, Char- 
acter, and Writings of William Cullen Bryant, etc. Died, New 
Brighton, Staten Id., N. Y., Aug. 31, 1892. See Century Mag. 
Feb., 1883. 

Custer, Elizabeth [Bacon], b. Monroe, Mich. With her husband, 
Gen. Geo. A. Custer, in his military service. Author of Boots and 
Saddles, and Tenting on the Plains. 

Dana, Richard Henry, b. Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 15, 1787. Con- 
tributed to North Am. Review. Member Mass. Leg. Author of 
The Buccaneer, The Ldle Man, Poems, etc. Died, Boston, Feb. 
2, 1879. 

Dana, R. H., Jr.. lawyer, b. Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 1, 1815. Son 
of R. H. D. Graduate of Harvard. Author of Two Years Before 
the Mast, The Seaman's Friend, and To Cuba and Back. Died, 
Rome, Italy, Jan. 7, 1882. 

Davis, Rebecca [Harding], b. Washington, Pa., June 24, 1831. 
Author of the novels, Margaret Howth, Dallas Galbraith, A Law 
Unto Herself, etc. 

Deland, Margaretta Wade [Campbell] (Margaret Deland), b. Alle- 
gheny, Pa., Feb. 23, 1857. Author of The Old Garden and Other 
Verses, John Ward Preacher, Florida Days, Sidney, Mr. Tommy 
Dove and Other Stoi r ies, Philip and His Wife, etc. 

Dickinson, Anna E., orator, b. Phil., Pa., October 28, 1842. Made 
her first speech at a meeting held to consider " Woman's Rights and 
Wrongs." Successful lecturer. Author of What Answer, A Paying 
Lnvestment, and A Plea for Education. 

Dodge, Mary Abigail, "Gail Hamilton," b. Hamilton, Mass., 1838, 
Author of Country Living and Country Thinking, Gala Days, A 
New Atmosphere, Woman's Wrongs, Woman 's Worth and Worth- 
lessness, etc. Died at her birthplace, Aug. 17, 1896. 

Dodge, Mary [ Mapes], b. N. Y. City, 1838. Editor of St. Nicholas. 
Author of Hans Brinker, Donald and Dorothy, The Land of 
Pluck, etc. 

Drake, Joseph Rodman, b. N. Y. City, Aug. 17, 1795. First poem, 
The Mocking Bird, written at fourteen. He and Fitz-Greene Hal- 
leck contributed a series of humorous poems called the "Croaker 
papers," to the N. Y. Evening Post. The Culprit Fay, and The 
American Flag are his best known poems. Died, N. Y. City, Sept 
21, 1820. 



204 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Draper. John W., scientist, b. St. Helen's Eng., May 5, 1811. Came 
to U. S. in 1832. World-wide reputation as a scientist. Author of 
History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, History of the 
American Civil War, History of the Conflict between Religion and 
Science, etc, Died, Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y., Jan. 4, 1882. 

Duyckinck, Evert A., b. N. Y. City, Nov. 23, 1816. He and his 
brother, Geo. Duyckinck, wrote the Cyclopcsdia of Am. Lit. Author 
of National Gallery of Eminent Americans, History of the World, 
and Biog. of Eminent Men and Women of Europe and America. 
Died N. Y. City, Aug. 13, 1878. 

Dwight, Timothy, b. Northampton, Mass., May 14, 1752. Pres. of 
Yale. Author of Travels in New England and New York, The Con- 
quest of Canaan, Gree?ifteld Hill, a poem, Columbia, a popular war- 
song, and the hymn beginning, "I love thy kingdom, Lord." Died 
New Haven, Ct, Jan. 11, 1817. 

Eastman, Elaine [Goodale], b. Mt. Washington, Berkshire Co., 
Mass., Oct. 9, 1863. Supt. of all the Indian schools of S. D. Her 
sister, Dora Read Goodale, is a poet also. Their poems are pub- 
lished together as Apple Blossoms, In Berkshire with the Wild 
Flowers, Verses from Sky Farm, and All Round the Year. 

Edwards, Jonathan, b. East Windsor, Ct, Oct. 5, 1703. A noted 
preacher and metaphysician. Author of Freedom of the Will, Nar- 
rative of Surprising Conversions, Treatise on Original Sin, History 
of Redemption, etc. Pres. of Princeton one month when he died at 
Princeton, N. J., Mar. 22, 1758. 

Eggleston, Edward, b. Vevay, Ind., Dec. 10, 1837. Edited Little 
Corporal, Sunday-School Teacher, N. Y. Independent, and Hearth 
and Home. Author of The Circuit Rider, Hoosier Schoolmaster, 
The End of the World, The Graysons, A History of the United 
Stales, The Faith Doctor, etc. 

Eliot, John, "the apostle of the Indians," b. in Hertfordshire, 
Eng., 1604. Graduate of Cambridge Univ. Came to Am. in 1631. 
Translated the Bible and many religious writings into the Indian 
language. Author of The Christian Commonwealth, The Commun- 
ion of Churches, and The Harmony of the Gospels. Died, Roxbury, 
Mass., May 20, 1690. 

Elliott, Maud [Howe], b. Boston, Nov. 9, 1855. Dau. of Julia 
Ward Howe. Author of A Newport Aquarelle, The San Rosario 
Ranch, Atlanta in the South, and Mammon. 

Fawcett, Edgar, b. N. Y. City, May 26, 1847. Graduate of Co- 
lumbia. Leading works, Purple and Fine Linen, A Hopeless Case, 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 205 

Poems of Fantasy and Passion, Romance and Revery, and The 
False Friend, a drama. 

Field. Eugene, journalist, b. St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 2, 1850. Au- 
thor of Denver Tribune Primer, Culture's Garland, A Little Book 
of Western Verse, A Little Book of Profitable Tales, Love Affairs 
of a Bibliomaniac, and The House. Died, Chicago, Nov. 4, 1895. 

Fields, Annie [Adams], b. Boston. 1834. Wife of J. T. F. Au- 
thor of Under the Olive, How to Help the Poor, James T Fields : 
Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches, Whittier : Notes of his 
Life and of his Friendships, A Shelf of Old Books, The Singing 
Shepherd, poems, etc. 

Fields, James T., publisher, b. Portsmouth, N. H., Dec. 31, 1819. 
Editor of the Atlantic. Leading Works, Poems, A Few Verses for 
a Few Friends, Jf ester days with Authors, Hawthorne, and Ln and 
Out of Doors with Dickens. Died, Boston, Apr. 24, 1881. 

Fiske, John, b. Hartford, Ct, Mar. 30, 1842. His name was 
originally Edmund Fiske Green, but he assumed the name of his 
maternal great-grandfather in 1855. Devoted his life to the study 
of the human race, its history and destiny. Leading works, The Des- 
tiny of Man, The Unseen World, American Political Ldeas, The 
Critical Period of American History, etc. 

Foote. Mary [Hallock], b. Milton, N. Y., Nov., 19, 1847. Author 
of The Led- Horse Claim, John Bodewirfs Testimony, The Chosen 
Valley, The Last Assembly Ball, and Ln Exile. 

Franklin, Benjamin, statesman, b. Boston, Jan. 17, 1706. From 
childhood he was fond of reading, and he studied carefully any books 
that came in his way. In 1731, he suggested to the "Junto" club that 
they keep their books together so that all the members might have 
access to them. The public library was the result of this small be- 
ginning. The next year he began the publication of Poor Richard's 
Almanac, which was issued annually for about twenty-five years. 
Besides the usual information to be found in an almanac, it abounded 
in advice as to the proper use of one's time, and taught the virtues of 
self-denial, industry, thrift, and economy in such a clear, pithy way 
as to take hold of the people convincingly and make "Poor Richard" 
an authority in the household. He was one of the greatest men of 
his time, distinguished at home and abroad for his courage, fore- 
sight, and diplomatic services in aiding his country to attain inde- 
pendence, and afterwards to take a proper rank among the nations. 
Leading works, Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Essay on 
Human Vanity, Reflections on Courtship and Marriage, and Prop- 



206 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

er'ties and Effects of Electrical Matter. Died, Phil., Pa., Apr. 17, 
1790. His grave is in the old Quaker burying-ground in Phil., a short 
distance from Independence Hall. See Benjamin Franklin, by John 
T. Morse in Am. Statesmen, McMaster's Franklin in Am. Men of 
Letters, and Harper's Mag., July, 1880. 

Freneau, Phillip, b. N. Y. City, Jan. 2, 1752. Graduate of Prince- 
ton. Author of The British Prison - Ship, a poem, Letters by Rob- 
ert Slender, and many poems chiefly of a patriotic or satirical na- 
ture. Died, near Freehold, N. J., Dec. 18, 1832. 

Furness, H. H., b. Phil., Pa., Nov. 2, 1833. Graduate of Harvard. 
Published several volumes of Shakespeare's plays with fine critical 
notes. They include Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, King 
Lear, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and As Yon Like Lt. 

Gilder, R. W., b. Bordentown, N. J., Feb. 8, 1844. Succeeded J. 
G. Holland as Ed. Century. Author of The New Day, The Poet and 
His Master, Lyrics, Two Worlds, and The Great Remembrance. 

Gladden, Washington, pastor First Cong. Ch. Columbus, O., b. 
Pottsgrove, Pa., Feb. 11, 1836. Graduate of Williams. Author of Art 
of Living, The Lord's Prayer, Who Wrote the Bible, Tools and The 
Man, Applied Christia?iity, Ruling Ldeas of the Present Age, The 
Cosmopolis City Club, etc. 

Godwin. Parke, editor, b. Patterson, N. J., Feb. 25, 1816. Grad- 
uate of Princeton. Son-in-law of W. C. Bryant. Author of Popular 
View of the Doctrines of Fourier, Out of the Past, Handbook of Uni- 
versal Biography, etc. Edited Bryant's complete works, with memoir. 

Goodrich, Samuel G., "Peter Parley," publisher, b. Ridgefield, Ct, 
Aug. 19, 1793. Author of Tales of Peter Parley About America, 
Pictorial Geog. of the World, The Outcast and Other Poems, Fire- 
side Education, Thousand and One Stories, etc. Died, N. Y. City, 
May 9, 1860. 

Greeley, Horace, journalist, b. Amherst, N. H., Feb. 3, 1811. 
Founded the N. Y. Tribune in 1841. Author of Hints Toward Re- 
forms, Glances at Europe, The American Conflict, Recollections of a 
Busy Life, What L Know of Farming, etc. Died, Pleasantville, N. 
Y., Nov. 29, 1872. 

Griswold, R. W., b. Benson, Vt, Feb. 15, 1815. Edited Graham's 
Mag., and later the Lnternational Mag. Leading works, Poets and 
Poetry of America, Prose Writers of Am., Female Poets of Am., 
Poets and Poetry of Eng., Sacred Poetry of Eng. and Am. Died, 
IN. Y. Cit y> Aug. 27, 1857. 

Hale, Edward Everett, clergyman, b. Boston, Apr. 3, 1822. Grad- 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 207 

mate of Harvard. Leading works, The Rosary, The Man Without a 
Country, Ten Times One is Ten, In His Name, A New England 
Boyhood, etc. See Vedder's Am. Writers of To-day. 

Hale, Sarah J. [Buell], b, Newport, N. H., Oct. 24, 1788. Best 
known poems, The Light of Home, Mary's Lamb, and It Snows. 
Author of Sketches of Distinguished Women, The Genius of Oblivion, 
Northwood, etc. Ed. of Godey's Lady Book for more than forty 
years. Died, Phila., Pa. Apr. 30, 1879. 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, b. Guilford, Ct., July 8, 1790. (See Drake.) 
Eest known poems, Fanny and Marco Bozzaris. His poetry has 
been edited with the title Poetical Writings. Died, Guilford, Ct., 
Nov. 19, 1867. See Life and Letters, by Grant Wilson, and Holmes's 
Poem at the Dedication of the Halleck Monument. 

Hardy. Arthur^ Sherbourne, educator, b. Andover, Mass. Aug. 13, 
1847. Prof, at Dartmouth. Author of But Yet a Woman, The Wind 
of Destiny, Passe Rose, Joseph Hardy Neesima, etc. 

Harris, Joel Chandler, journalist, b. Eatonton, Ga., Dec. 9, 1848. 
Bd. of Atlanta Constitution. Author of Nights With Uncle Remus, 
Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country, etc. 

Harris, William T.. educator, b. North Killingly, Ct, Sept. 10, 
1835. Nat. Com. of Ed. Eminent writer and lecturer on educational 
and philosophical subjects. Author of Introduction to the Study of 
Philosophy, The Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia, etc. 

Harte, Francis Bret. b. Albany, N. Y., Aug. 25, 1839. Author of 
The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Heathen Chinee, Mrs. Skagg's 
Husbands, The Story of a Mine, A Phyllis of the Sierras, etc. 

Hawthorne. Julian, b. Boston, June 22, 1846. Author of Fortune's 
Fool, Noble Blood, Love — or a Name, Constance, etc. His most 
valuable work is a biography of his father and mother entitled 
Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife. 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton, b. Charleston, S. C, Jan. 1, 1830. Contrib- 
uted to many of the Southern periodicals. Author of Sonnets, Le- 
gends and Lyrics, The Mountain of the Lovers, Life of Robt. Y. 
Hayne, etc. Died at his home, "Copse Hill," Forest Station, Ga., 
July 6, 1886. 

Headley, Joel T., b. Walton, N. Y., Dec. 30, 1813. Graduate of 
Union. Author of The Adirondacks, Napoleon and His Marshals, 
Washington and His Generals, Grant and Sherman, The Great Re- 
bellion, and the lives of Cromwell, Havelock, and Washington. 

Higginson. Thomas Wentworth, b. Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 22, 1823. 
Graduate of Harvard. Prominent anti-slavery and woman-suffrage 



208 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

advocate. Author of Army Life in a Black Regiment, The Sym-. 
pathy of Religions, Young Folks' Hist, of U. S., Common Sense 
about Women, Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, etc. 

Hildreth, Richard, b. Deerfield, Mass., June 22, 1807. Graduate of 
Harvard. Author of The White Slave (the first anti-slavery novel),. 
Theory of Morals, Theory of Politics, Despotism in America, His- 
tory of the U. S., etc. Died, Florence, Italy, July 11, 1865. 

Hillard. Geo. S., lawyer, b. Machias, Me., Sept. 22, 1808. Grad- 
uate of Harvard. Author of Memorial of Daniel Webster, Six 
Months in Ltaly, Life and Campaigns of Geo. B. McClelland, Political 
Duties of the Educated Classes, and Life of George Ticknor. Died, 
Boston, Jan. 21, 1879. 

Holley. Marietta. "Josiah Allen's Wife," b. Ellisburg, N. Y., 1844. 
A humorous writer. Author of fosiah Allen's Wife, My Opinions 
and Betsey Bobbefs, Sweet Cicely, Samantha at Saratoga, Samantha 
at the World's Fair, Samantha in Europe, Poems, etc. 

Hopkins. Mark, educator, b. Stockbridge, Mass., Feb. 4, 1802. 
Graduate of Williams and later Pres. of this famous college. 
Author of Evidences of Christianity, Lectures on Moral Science, The 
Law of Love, An Outline Study of Man, etc. Died, Williamstown, 
Mass., June 17, 1887. 

Hopkinson. Francis, b. Phil., Pa., Sept. 21, 1737. A signer of the 
Dec. of Independence. Author of The Pretty Story, The Prophecy, 
The Political Catechism, Battle of the Kegs, etc. Died, Phil., Pa., 
May 9, 1791. 

Hopkinson. Joseph, lawyer, b. Phil., Pa., Nov. 12, 1770. Wrote the 
national song Hail, Columbia. Died, Phil., Pa., Jan. 15, 1842. 

Howard. Blanche Willis, b. Bangor, Me., July 16, 1847. Author of 
One Summer, One Year Abroad, Aunt Serena, Guenn, Aulnay 
Tower, etc. Wrote with William Sharp A Fellowe and His Wife. 

Howe, Julia [Ward], b. N. Y. City, May 27, 1819. Author of the 
famous Battle Hymn of the Republic. Also A Trip To Cuba, Later 
Lyrics, From the Oak to the Olive, Modern Society, and Life of 
Margaret Fuller. 

Howells, William Dean. b. Martin's Ferry, O., Mar. 1, 1837. At one 
time on the editorial staff of the Ohio State Journal, Columbus, O. 
Consul at Venice for several years. Editor of the Atlantic for ten 
years. Author of Their Wedding Journey, A Chance Acquaintance, 
A Foregone Conclusion, A Modern Lnstance, A Woman's Reason, The 
Rise of Silas Lapham, An Lmperative Duty, The World of Chance, 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 209 

A Boy's Town, etc. Also The Mouse-Trap, Eveni?ig Dress, and other 
farces. See Vedder's American Writers of To-Day. 

Jackson, Helen Maria [Fiske], "H. H.," b. Amherst, Mass., Oct. 
18, 1831. Dau. of Prof. F. of Amherst. Her first husband was Capt. 
E. B. Hunt. Author of A Century of Dishonor, Ramona, Bits of 
Travel, Bits of Talk, Nelly's Silver Mine, Poems, etc. She is 
spoken of as the finest woman poet of America. Her two first men- 
tioned books have done much towards bettering the condition of the 
Indian. Died, San Francisco, Aug. 12, 1885. 

James, Henry, Jr., b. N. Y. City, Apr. 15, 1843. Son of Henry James, 
who wrote Moralism and Christianity, Personal Recollections ofCar- 
lyle, etc. Author of Roderick Hudson, The American, The Europe- 
ans, Confidence, Daisy Miller, The Tragic Muse, etc. 

Jewett, Sarah Orne, "Alice Eliot," b. S. Berwick, Me., Sept. 3, 1849. 
Among her books are Deephaven, Strangers and Wayfarers, The 
Mate of the Daylight, Country By- Ways, Betty Leicester, and The 
Life of Nancy. 

Judd, Sylvester, clergyman, b. Westhamptou, Mass., July 23, 1813. 
Graduate of Yale. Author of A Young Man's Account of his Con- 
version from Calvinism, Margaret, Philo: An Evangeliad, and 
Richard Edney. Died, Augusta, Me., Jan. 26, 1853. 

Judson, Emily, [Chubbuck], "Fanny Forester," b. Eaton, N. Y., 
Aug. 22, 1817. Wrote An Olio of Domestic Verse, Kathayan Slave, 
and Alderbrook. Died, Hamilton, N. Y., June 1, 1854. 

Kennedy, John P., lawyer, b. Baltimore, Md., Oct. 25, 1795. Author 
of A Defence of the Whigs, The Red Book, Horse-Shoe Robinson, 
Annals of Quodlibet, etc. Died, Newport, R. I., Aug. 18, 1870. 

Kirk, Ellen W. [Olney], "Henry Hayes," b. Southington, Ct, Nov. 
6, 1842. Dau. of J. O., the geographer. Author of A Midsummer 
Madness, The Story of Margaret Kent, Sons and Daughters, A 
Daughter of Eve, etc. 

Knox, T. W., traveler, b. Pembroke, N. H.June 26, 1835. Made 
tours abroad as correspondent of newspapers. Author of Camp- 
Fir es and Cotton- Fields, Overland through Asia, The Boy Travellers 
series, etc. Died N. Y. City, Jan. 6. 1896. 

Lanier, Sidney, b. Macon, Ga., Feb. 3, 1842. Successively clerk, 
teacher, and lawyer. Author of Tiger-Lilies, The Boy's King 
Arthur, The Science of English Verse, The English Novel and the 
Principles of its Development, Poems, etc. Lee. on Eng. Lit. at 
Johns Hopkins Univ. Died, Lynn, N. C, Sept. 7, 1881. 

Larcom, Lucy, b. Beverly, Mass., 1826. As a girl, she worked in 



210 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

the mills of Lowell, Mass. Edited Our Young Folks for several 
years. Author of Ships in the Mist, An Idyl of Work, Wild Roses 
of Cape Ann, A New England Girlhood, At the Beautiful Gate, etc. 
Died, Beverly, Mass., Apr. 15, 1893. See Lucy Larcom, Life, Letters, 
and Diary, by Rev. Daniel D. Addison. 

Lathrop, Geo. P.,b. Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, Aug. 25, 1851. Son- 
in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Assistant editor of the Atlantic and 
afterwards editor of the Boston Courier. Author of Rose and Roof- 
tree, A Study of Hawthorne, Afterglow, etc. His dramatic adapta- 
tions of Tennyson's Elaine and Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter have 
been successfully produced on the stage. 

Lathrop, Rose [Hawthorne], b. Lenox, Mass., May 20, 1851. Dau. 
of N. H. A writer of magazine stories and author of a volume of 
poems entitled Along the Shore. 

Lazarus, Emma, b. N. Y. City, July 22, 1849. Being a Jewess, 
her sympathies were aroused during the persecution of the Jews in 
Russia, and she did much in aid of the refugees from that country to 
the U. S. Author of Poems and Translations, Admetus and Other 
Poems, Alide: A Romance, The Spagnoletto : a Drama, Heine'' s 
Poems and Ballads (translated), and Songs of a Semite. Died, 
N. Y. City, Nov. 19, 1887. 

Leland, Chas. G., "Hans Breitman," b. Phil. Pa., Aug. 15, 1824. 
Graduate of Princeton. Studied the life and language of the gypsies. 
Author of Practical Education, Home Arts and Industries, Hans 
Breitman' 's Ballads, The Gypsies, The Algonquin Legends of New 
England, etc. 

Lippincott, Sarah J. [Clarke], "Grace Greenwood," b. Pompey, 
N. Y., Sept. 23, 1823. Lecturer, and a writer for children. Author 
of Greenwood Leaves, Record of Five Years, Haps and Mishaps 
of a Tour in Europe, Poems, etc. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, b. Boston, May 12, 1850. Graduated at Har- 
vard and lectured there on history. Edited N. Am. Review. Mem. 
of Cong, from Mass. Author of Life and Letters of Geo. Cabot, 
Hist, of the Eng. Colonies in Am., Boston, etc. Also Alexander 
Hamilton, Daniel Webster, and George Washington in Am. States- 
men Series. 

Longfellow, Samuel, clergyman, b. Portland, Me., June 18, 1819. 
Bro. of H. W. L. Graduate of Harvard. Author of several hymns, 
Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Final Memorials of H. 
W. L. Died, Portland, Me., Oct. 3, 1892. 

Lossing, Benson J., b. Beekman, N. Y, Feb. 12, 1813. Among the 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 211 

first wood-engravers of Am., and illustrator of most of his own 
works. Author of Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution, War of 
1812, and The Civil War, Cyclopaedia of U. S., Hist., Maiy and 
Martha Washington, etc. Died, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., June 3, 1891. 

Mabie, Hamilton W., journalist, b. Cold Spring, N. Y., Dec. 13, 1845. 
'Graduate of Williams. Assoc. Ed. of N. Y. Christian Union. Author 
of My Study Fire, Under the Trees and Elsewhere, Short Studies 
dn Literature, Essays in Literary Lnterpretation, etc. 

Mather, Cotton, clergyman, b. Boston, Feb. 12, 1663. Graduate of 
Harvard. Participator in the witchcraft delusion of his time. Author 
of Memorable Providences Relating to Witchraft and Possessions, 
Life of fohn Eliot, Wonders of the Lnvisible World, etc. Died, Bos- 
ton, Feb. 13, 1728. 

Mather, Increase, clergyman, b. Dorchester, Mass., June 21, 1639. 
Father of C. M. Educated at Harvard and at Trinity, Col., Dublin. 
Pres. of Harvard. Author of An Essay for the Recording of Illus- 
trious Providences, etc. Died, Boston, Aug. 23, 1723. 

Matthews, Brander, "Arthur Penn," b. New Orleans, La., Feb. 21, 
1852. Graduated at Columbia, where he is now Prof, of Lit. Author 
of several dramas. Also The Theaters of Paris, A Secret of the Sea, 
An Introduction to the Study of Am. Lit., etc. 

Melville, Herman, b. N. Y City, Aug. 1, 1819. Author of Typee, 
Omoo, Mardi, The Piazzi Tales, The Confidence Man, etc. Died, N. 
Y. City, Sept. 28, 1891. 

Miller, Cincinnatus H., "Joaquin Miller," b. Wabash Dis., Ind., 
Nov. 10, 1841. Author of Songs of the Sierras, Songs of the Soul, 
The One Fair Woman, etc. 

Mitchell, Donald, G., "Ik Marvel," b. Norwich, Ct, April 12, 1822. 
Graduate of Yale. Author of Fresh Gleanings, The Lorgnette, 
Reveries of a Bachelor, Dream Life, My Farm at Edgewood, Dr. 
Johns, etc. 

Murfree, Mary N., "Charles Egbert Craddock," b. near Murfrees- 
boro', Tenn. Author of In the Tennessee Mountains, In the Clouds, 
The Story of Keedon Bluffs, The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain, 
His Vanished Star, etc. 

Nye, Edgar Wilson, "Bill Nye," b. Shirley, Me., Aug. 25, 1850. 
Humorous lecturer and writer. Author of Bill Nye and the Boom- 
erang, The Forty Liars, Bill Nye's Blossom Book, etc. Died, Buck 
Shoals, near Asheville, N. C, Feb. 22, 1896. 

O'Reilly, John Boyle, journalist, b. Dowth Castle, Co. Meath, Ire- 
land, June 28, 1844. Came to U. S. in 1869. Author of Songs of the 



212 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

Southern Seas, Moondyne, Statues in the Block, etc. Died, Hull,, 
Mass., Aug. 10, 1890. 

Osgood, Frances S. [ Locke ], b. Boston, June 18, 1811. A friend of 
Poe. Author of A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England y 
The Floral Offering, etc. Died, Hingham, Mass., May 12, 1850. 

Ossoli, Sarah Margaret [Fuller], b. Cambridgeport, Mass., May 23,. 
1810. A friend of Emerson and one of the transcendentalists. 
Edited the Dial. Literary critic on the N. Y. Tribune when Greeley 
was its editor. Went to Europe and was married to the Marquis 
d'Ossoli in Italy. While returning to U. S., the ship was wrecked off 
Fire Island and she and her husband and child were drowned. 
Author of Woman i?i the Nineteenth Century, Papers on Lit. and 
Art, etc. Died Fire Id., N. Y., July 16, 1850. See Life of Margaret 
Fuller, by J. W. Howe ; Margaret Fuller Ossoli, by T. W. Higginson 
in Am. Men of Let.; Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, by Emer- 
son, J. F. Clarke, and W. H. Channing; Galaxy Mag. May, 1878. 

Paine. Rob't Treat, b. Taunton, Mass., Dec. 9, 1773. Graduate of 
Harvard. His poetical writings are The Lnvention of Letters, The 
Ruling Passion, etc. Rise, Columbia and Adams and Liberty are 
his best known songs. Died, Boston, Nov. 13, 1811. 

Parker, Theodore, clergyman, b. Lexington, Mass., Aug. 24, 1810. 
Educated at Harvard. A noted philanthropist and reformer. Author 
of Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion, Historic Americans,. 
etc. Died, Florence, Italy, May 10, 1860. 

Parton, James, b. Canterbury, Eng., Feb. 9, 1822. Came to U. S- 
and was educated in N. Y. City. Author of lives of Horace Greeley,. 
Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benj. Franklin, Thomas Jefferson,. 
and Voltaire. Died, Newburyport, Mass., Oct. 17, 1891. 

Parton, Sarah [Willis], "Fanny Fern," b. in Maine, 1811. Wife 
of James P. and sister of N. P. Willis. Author of Fern Leaves, Folly 
as it Flies, Ginger Snaps, etc. Died, 1872. 

Paulding, James K.. b. Dutchess Co., N. Y, Aug. 22, 1799. Asso- 
ciated with Irving in the publication of Salmigundi. Author of 
John Bull and Brother Jonathan, The Dutchman 's Fireside, etc. 
Died, Hyde Park, N. Y., Apr. 6, 1860. 

Piatt. John J., b. Milton, Ind., Mar. 1, 1835. Author of Poems in 
Sunshine and Firelight, At the Holy Well, etc. His wife Sarah 
Piatt is author of several vols, of poetry, A Voyage to the Fortunate 
Isles, An Irish Garland, etc. 

Porter, Noah, educator, b. Farmington, Ct, Dec. 14, 1811. Grad- 
uate of Yale. Chief editor of Webster's Diet, on its revision in 1864 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 213 

and 1880. Author of The Human Intellect, Books and Reading, 
Elements of Moral Science, etc. Died, New Haven, Ct, Mar. 4, 1892. 

Ridpath, John Clark, educator, b. Putnam Co., Ind., Apr. 26, 1840. 
Graduate of De Pauw Univ. where he became professor and later 
Vice-Pres. Author of A History of the United States, lives of Gar- 
field and Blaine, and A Cyclopaedia of Universal History. 

Riley, James, Whitcomb, "Benj. F. Johnson of Boone," b. Green- 
field, Ind., 1853. Humorist. Writes mainly in the Hoosier dialect. 
Author of Green Fields and Running Brooks, Armazindy, Poems 
Here at Home, Afterwhiles, Rhymes of Childhood, etc. See fames 
Whitcomb Riley, Munsey, July, 1895. 

Roe, E. P., clergyman, b. New Windsor, N. Y., Mar. 7, 1838. 
His novels are Barriers Burned Away, Opening of the Chestnut 
Burr, Nature's Serial Story, Miss Lou, etc. Died, Cornwall, N. Y., 
July 19, 1888. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, b. N. Y. City, Oct. 27, 1858. Graduate of 
Harvard. As Police Commissioner of N. Y. City he has become 
notable by his rigid enforcement of law. Author of The Naval War 
of 1812, Essays on Practical Politics, Ranch Life and the Hunting 
Trail, The Wilderness Hunter, etc. Also Gouverneur Morris in 
Am. Statesmen. 

Sanborn. Frank B., b. Hampton Falls, N. H., Dec. 15, 1831. 
Graduate of Harvard. One of the organizers of the Concord Sch. of 
Philosophy and of the Am. Social Science Association. Author of 
Life of Thoreau and Life and Letters of John Brown. Edited 
Thoreau's Familiar Letters. 

Saxe, John Godfrey, b. Highgate, Vt., June 2, 1816. Graduate of 
Middlebury. Successively Ed. of the Burlington, Vt. Sentinel, Atty. 
Gen. of Vt., and Ed. of the Albany, N. Y. Evening Journal. Con- 
tributed humorous poems to the magazines. Among his popular 
poems are The Proud Miss MacBride, My Familiar, The Brief- 
less Barrister, and the Rhyme of the Rail. Died, Albany, N. Y., 
Mar. 31, 1887. 

Schaff, Philip, divine, b. Coire, Switz., Jan. 1, 1819. Educated 
in Germany. Theol. Dec. in Berlin Univ. Came to Amer. as Prof, of 
Ch. Hist, in the Mercersburg, Pa. Theol. Sem. Author of History of 
the Christian Church, Christ and Christianity, Literature and Poetry, 
The Renaissance, etc. Died New York City, Oct. 20, 1893. 

Scudder, Horace E., b. Boston, Oct. 16, 1838. Graduate of Wil- 
liams. Ed. of the Atlantic. Author of Seven Little People, Dream 
Children, The Bodley Books, Men and Manners in America, Child- 



214 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

hood in Literature and Art, etc. Edited with Mrs. Taylor Life and 
Letters of Bayard Taylor. 

Sigourney, Lydia [Huntley], b. Norwich, Ct, Sept. 1, 1791. Au- 
thor of Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, Traits of the Aborigines 
of America, Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands, etc. Died, Hart- 
ford, Ct.June 10, 1865. 

Simms, William Gilmore, b. Charleston, S. C, Apr. 17, 1806. 
Author of Lyrical and other Poems, Atalantis, The Damsel of Darien y 
War Poetry of the South, etc. Died, Charleston, S. C, June 11, 1870. 

Sparks. Jared, educator, b. Willington, Ct., May 10, 1789. Grad- 
uate of Harvard. Author of lives of Gouverneur Morris, George 
Washington, and Benj. Franklin, Library of Am. Biog., etc. Died, 
Cambridge, Mass., Mar. 14, 1866. 

Spofford. Harriet E. [Prescott], b. Calais, Me., Apr. 3, 1835. Author 
of Sir Rohan's Guest, The Amber Gods, The Servant Girl Question, 
A Master Spirit, etc. 

Stedman. E. C, b. Hartford, Ct, Oct. 8, 1833. Author of Victorian 
Poets, Poets of America, The Nature and Elements of Poetry , etc. Also 
several volumes of poetry. See Vedder's Am. Writers of To- Day. 

Stockton. Frank R.. b. Phil., Pa., Apr. 5, 1834. Author of Rudder 
Grange, The Lady or The Tiger, The Late Mrs. Null, etc. 

Stoddard. Richard Henry, poet and journalist, b. Hingham, Mass.,, 
July 2, 1825. Author of Footprints, Adventures in Fairy Land, The 
King's Bell, The Book of the East, etc. His wife Elizabeth Stoddard 
has written poems, and the novels The Morgesons, Two Men, and 
Temple House. See Vedder's Am. Writers of To-Day. 

Storrs, Richard S., clergyman, b. Baintree, Mass., Aug. 21, 1821. 
Graduate of Amherst. Author of Early Amer. Spirit and the Gene- 
sis of Lt, Manliness in the Scholar, Forty Years of Pastoral Life, etc. 

Story, William W., sculptor, b. Salem, Mass., Feb. 12, 1819. Grad- 
uate of Harvard. Author of Life and Letters of Joseph Story, Con' 
versations in a Studio, etc. Died, Valambrosa, Italy, Oct. 7, 1895. 

Swing, David, clergyman, b. Cincinnati, O., Aug. 23, 1830. Grad- 
uate of Miami University. Author of The Motives of Life, Club 
Essays, Truths for To-Day, and several vols, of sermons. Died, 
Chicago, Oct. 3, 1894. 

Thaxter, Celia [Laighton], b. Portsmouth, N. H., June 29, 1836. 
Some of her finest poems are Spring Again, Courage, Kittery 
Church Yard, and The Watch of Boon Island. Author of Among 
the Isles of Shoals, Drift- Weed, Poems for Children, and The Cruise 
of the Mystery. Died Aug. 27, 1894. See Authors and Friends by 
Annie Fields. 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 215 

Thomas. Edith M., b. Chatham, O., Aug. 12, 1854. Author of A 
New Year's Masque, The Round Year, Lyrics and Sonnets, In the 
Young World, etc. 

Thompson. Maurice, b. Fairfield, Ind., Sept. 9, 1844. Educated in 
Georgia. Author of Hoosier Mosaics, The Witchery of Archery, A 
Tallahassee Girl, Ethics of Literary Art, etc. 

Tourgee. Albion W., b. Williamsfield, O., May 2, 1838. After the 
war he was lawyer and editor at Greensboro, N. C. His reconstruc- 
tion novels are the results of his experiences there. Author of A 
Tool's Errand, Bricks Without Straw, An Appeal to Cczsar, Hot 
Plowshares, and Button's Inn. 

Trowbridge, J. T.. b. Ogdeu, N. Y., Sept. 18, 1827. Popular 
writer for the young. His works include Father Brighthopes, 
Neighbor fackwood, Cudjo's Cave, Lucy Arlyn, and many poems, 
among them The Vagabonds, The Lost Earl, At Sea, and Midsummer. 

Tyler, Moses Coit, educator, b. Griswold, Ct, Aug. 2, 1835. Au- 
thor of The Brawnville Papers, Hist, of Am. Lit., Manual of Eng. 
Lit., and Life of Patrick Henry. 

Venable. W. H.. educator, b. Warren Co., O., Apr. 29, 1836. Au- 
thor of The Teacher's Dream, Hist, of the U. S., fune on the Miami 
and Other Poems, Melodies of the Heart, etc. 

Wallace. Lewis, b. Brookville, Ind., Apr. 10, 1827. Served in the 
Mex. and Civil Wars. A lawyer, and U. S. Minister to Turkey. 
Author of Ben-Hur, The Fair God, and The Prince of India. 

Ward, Elizabeth Stuart [Phelps], b. Boston, Mass., Aug. 13, 
1844. Author of The Gates Ajar, Beyond the Gates, Hedged In, 
An Old Maid's Paradise, The Struggle for Immortality, A Sin- 
gular Life, and Chapters from a Life (an autobiography). 

Warner, Chas. Dudley, b, Plainfield, Mass., Sept. 12, 1829. Grad- 
uate of Hamilton College. Author of My Winter on the Nile, My 
Summer in a Garden, Back-Log Studies, Being a Boy, A Little 
fourney in the World, The Golden House, etc. Also Washington 
Irving in Am. Men of Let. 

Wayland, Francis, b. N. Y. City, Mar. 11, 1796. Graduate of Union 
College. Author of Ele. of Moral Science, Ele. of Political Economy, 
Ele. of Intellectual Phil, etc. Died, Prov., R. I., Sept. 30, 1865. 

Weiss, John, clergyman, b. Boston, June 28, 1818. Author of 
Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Amer. Religion, and 
Wit, Humor, and Shakespeare. Died, Boston, Mar. 9, 1879. 

Whipple. E. P.. b. Gloucester, Mass., Mar. 8, 1819. Eminent as 
a lecturer and critic. Author of Essays and Reviews, Literature 



'216 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

and Life, Lit. of the Age of Elizabeth, Success and its Conditions, 
etc. Died, Boston, Tune 16, 1886. 

White, Emerson E.. educator, b. Mantua, Portage Co., O., Jan. 10, 
1829. Author of Elements of Pedagogy, School Management, a 
series of text-books on mathematics, etc. 

White, Richard Grant, b. N. Y. City, May 22, 1821. Graduate of 
Univ. of N. Y. Author of Shakespeare's Scholar, Works of Shakes- 
peare (edited), Words and their Uses, Studies in Shakespeare, The 
Fate of Mansfield Humphreys, etc. Died, N. Y. City, April 8, 1885. 

Whitman, Walt (er), b. W. Hills, L. I., N. Y., May 31, 1819. His 
best poem is a tribute to Lincoln, My Captain, O my Captain! 
Author of Leaves of Grass, Drum Taps, November Boughs, etc. 
Also a volume of prose, Specimen Days and Collect. Died, Camden, 
N. J., Mar. 26, 1892. Known as "The Good Gray Poet." See Walt 
Whitman, Munsey, Nov., 1895. 

Whitney. A. D. [Train], b. Boston, Sept. 15, 1824. A writer for 
young people. Author of Faith Gartney's Girlhood, Hitherto, We 
Girls, Real Folks, Mother Goose for Grown Folks, etc. See Ved- 
der's American Writers of To-day. 

Whitney, William Dwight, philologist, b. Northampton, Mass., Feb. 
9, 1827. Graduated at Williams and studied in Germany. Author of 
German Gram., Life and Growth of Language, Essentials of Eng. 
Gram., Practical French Gram., etc. Died, New Haven, Ct., June 
7, 1894. See Atlantic Monthly, Mar., 1895. 

Wiggin. Kate Douglas, b. Phil. Pa., . Author of The Birds' 

Christmas Carol, The Story of Patsy, Timothy's Quest, Children's 
Rights, A Cathedral Courtship, Polly Oliver's Problem, etc. 

Wilkins. Mary E., b. Randolph, Mass. Author of the novels Pem- 
broke, A Humble Ro induce, etc. 

Willard, Emma [Hart], educator, b. New Berlin, Ct, Feb. 23, 1787. 
Was principal of various schools in Vermont and New York. She 
founded the Troy Female Seminary in 1821, having charge of it until 
1838. Author of several school-books, also of the poem, Rocked in 
the Cradle of the Deep. Died, Troy, N. Y, Apr. 15, 1870. 

Willard, Frances E., reformer and philanthropist, b. Churchville, 
Monroe Co., N. Y., Sept. 28, 1839. Pres. of the World's and the 
National W. C. T. U. Author of Glimpses of Fifty Years, How to 
Win (a book for girls), Nineteen Beautiful Years, A Great 
Mother, etc. 

Willis. N. P., b. Portland, Me., Jan. 20, 1806. Graduate of Yale. 
First poems appeared in the Youth's Companion founded by his 



ADDITIONAL AMERICAN AUTHORS 217 

father. He is best known by his Scripture poems, Absalom, Jeph- 
.thah's Daughter, The Widow of Nain, etc. Author of Pencillings 
.by the Way, Loiterings of Travel, People I Have Met, Outdoors at 
Idlewild. He named his home on the Susquehanna " Glenmary," 
the one on the Hudson, " Idlewild." Died at Idlewild Jan. 20, 1867. 
See Nathaniel Parker Willis, by H. A. Beers in Am. Men of Letters. 

Winter, William, journalist, b. Gloucester, Mass., July 15, 1836. 
Graduate of Harvard Daw Sch. Author of The Convent, The Queen's 
Domain, Poems, Henry Irving, Gray Days and Gold, Life of Edwin 
Booth, Shakespeare's England, etc. 

Woolson, Constance Fenimore, b. Claremont, N. H., 1848. Grand- 
niece of J. F. Cooper. Author of Castle Nowhere, Anne, East Angels, 
Horace Chase, etc. Died, Venice, Italy, Jan. 24, 1894. 

There is only space to mention such writers as C. B. Lewis, " M 

•Quad" (1842 ^); D. R. Locke, ''Petroleum V. Nasby" (1833-1888); 

Margaret E. Sangster (1838 ); George Alfred Townsend, "Gath" 

(1841 ); Kate Tannett Woods; Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842). 

Author of The Old Oaken Bucket; Geo. P. Morris (1802-1864). 
Author of Woodman, Spare that Tree; William Lloyd Garrison ( 1805- 
1879); William T. Adams, "Oliver Optic" (1836-1897); Frank Lee Bene- 
dict (1834 ); Henry Harland (1861 ); Maria Catharine Sedgwick 

(1789-1867) ; Mary H. Terhune (183 ); Augusta Evans Wilson (1835- 

); Sarah C. Woolsey, "Susan Coolidge " ; Alice French, "Octave 

Thanet" (1850 ); Mary Clemmer (1839-1884); Susan Warner, 

"Elizabeth Wetherell " (1818-1885). Author of the Wide, Wide 
World; Ethelinda Beers (1827-1879 ). Author of the poem, All Quiet 
Along the Potomac ; C. C. Moore (1779-1863). Author of the poem, 
A Visit From St. Nicholas ; John Howard Payne (1791-1852). Author 
of Home, Sweet Home ; James Gates Percival (1795-1856) ; Geo. F. Root 
( 1820-1895 ) . Author of The Battle Cry of Freedom, fust Before the 
Battle, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, etc.; S. F. Smith (1808-1895). Author 
■of America; Charles Sprague (1791-1875). Author of The Family 
Meeting and The Winged Worshippers ; B. F. Taylor (1819-1887); 

Henry Timrod (1829-1867); Hiram Corson (1828 ); James McCosh 

(1811-1894) ; Charles Eliot Norton (1827 ) ; Theodore Dwight Woolsey 

(1801-1889); Delia Bacon (1811-1859); Robert J. Burdette (1844 ); 

G. P. Marsh (1801-1882); Louise Chandler Moulton (1835 ); H. W. 

Shaw, "Josh Billings" (1818-1885) ; B. P. Shillaber. "Mrs. Partington" 
(1814-1890). 

>-< 



218 AMERICAN AUTHORS 

LITERARY RECREATIONS* 

(American Authors) 

Who wrote The Alhambra, The American Flag, Arthur Bonni- 
castle, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The Barefoot Boy, The 
Biglow Papers, Ben-Hur, The Building of the Ship, The Chambered 
Nautilus, Drifting, Jephtha's Daughter, Evangeline, The Hoosier 
Schoolmaster, Kathrina, Lars, Little Women, Looking Backward, 
Over the Teacups, Prue and I, Reveries of a Bachelor, Rip Van 
Winkle, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Yesterdays with Authors, Con- 
cord Days, Under the Lilacs, Four Girls at Chautauqua, Baby Bell, 
Zig-Zag Journeys, The Boys of 76, Boots and Saddles, Wake Robin, 
Marco Bozzaris, My Familiar, The Man Without a Country, Mr. Rab- 
bit at Home, Sweet Cicely, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, A Boy's 
Town, A Century of Dishonor, Deephaven, A New England Girlhood, 
Greenwood Leaves, Fern Leaves, Armazindy, The Lady or the Tiger, 
The Teacher's Dream, The Story of Patsy, How to Win, Dred, A Visit, 
from St. Nicholas, The Spy, Being a Boy, America? 

Tell about Fanny Fairchild, Matilda Hoffman, Mary Agnew,, 
Mary Storer Potter, Maria White, Amelia Lee Jackson, Lydia Jack- 
son, Frances Appleton, Sophia Peabody, Marie Hansen, Virginia 
Clem, Elizabeth Whittier, Sunnyside, Marshfield, Brightwood, Clover- 
nook, Cedarcroft, Cedarmere, Buff Cottage, Hastings House, Cragie 
House, Beverly Farms, Elmwood, The Wayside, The Old Manse, 
Bonnie-Castle, Glenmary, Oak Knoll, Riverby, Idlewild, Atlantic 
Monthly, Saturday Club. Where are the graves of Bryant, Irving, 
Thoreau, Emerson, Longfellow, Agassiz, Whittier, Hawthorne, Poe,. 
Dr. Holmes, Lowell, Bayard Taylor, Webster, Sumner, Beecher, Wen- 
dell Phillips, Horace Mann, Alice and Phcebe Cary, Mrs. Stowe, Dr. 
Holland, Louisa Alcott ? To whom did Irving dedicate The Sketch- 
Book ? Who called himself the "incorrigible spouting Yankee"? 
What American Author was both a poet and an artist? Who wrote 
the following : " And since I never dare to write as funny as I can ", 
"As true taste hates a bad picture, a low literature, so it must hate, a. 
contemptible life", " A tart temper never mellows with age", "And 
all the sweet serenity of books ", " There is a Power whose care ", 
" Up and down these echoing stairs ", " In singing of Death he has- 

*A11 these questions are answered in this book. 



LITERARY RECREATIONS 219' 

won the prize of Immortality", "Thou hast taught me, Silent River", 
"Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think", "The 
brain women never interest us like the heart women", "Like the 
swell of some sweet tune ", " The heart hath its own memory ", " How 
earth does love all her working children", "Sail on, O Union", 
"When we were young and life was fresh and sweet", "Build thee 
more stately mansions ", " With one great gush of blossoms storms 
the world", " One language held his heart and lip", " They are slaves 
who dare not be in the right with two or three ", " A crank is a man 
who does his own thinking", "And proudly whispers, 'These were 
mine!'" "And joy was duty and love was law," "O'er the poet's 
house in the Elmwood thickets ", " A blameless memory shrined in 
deathless song", "And so beside the Silent Sea", "Who speaks the 
truth stabs Falsehood to the heart ", " The blessing of her quiet life 
fell on us like the dew", "By the rude bridge that arched the flood ", 
" Babel was the first Congress ", " Virtue alone is sweet society ", 
"Earth's noblest thing, a Woman perfected", "The passive Master 
lent his hand ", " In the dark hours we thought of thee, and thy 
lone grave beside the sea", "Let it rise till it meet the sun in his 
coming ", " Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous 
vessel, the Mayflower", "Shall longest pause at Sumner's name", 
" Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune ; but great 
minds rise above it ", " If you would save a nation, you must sanctify 
it as well as fortify it", "He scorned the gifts of fame, and power, 
and gold ", " Education is the only interest worthy the deep, con- 
trolling anxiety of the thoughtful man ", " A man can be wronged 
and live ; but the unresisted, unchecked impulse to do wrong is the 
first and the second death ", and 

"Goodnight! goodnight! as we so oft have said 
Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days 
That are no more, and shall no more return. 
Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed; 
I stay a little longer, as one stays 
To cover up the embers that still burn." 







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BRITISH AUTHORS 



ALFRED TENNYSON 

( 1809-1892 ) 

Tennyson is a born poet, that is, a builder of airy palaces and imagi- 
nary castles ; he has chosen amongst all forms the most elegant, ornate, ex- 
quisite.— Taine. 

O sweet historian of the heart ! — Longfellow. 

Among the best of Tennyson's poems are Idyls of the 
King, The Palace of Art, The Miller's Daughter, Lady 
Clara Vere de Vere, A Dream of Fair Women, The Death 
of the Old Year, The Gardener 's Daughter, Dora, The 
Talking Oak, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Princess, In Me- 
moriam, Maud, 77ie Brook, The Charge of the Light Bri- 
gade, Enoch Arden, and Crossing the Bar. 

Biography. — At Somersby, in Lincolnshire, England, of which 
place his father was rector, Alfred Tennyson was born Aug. 6, 1809. 
He spent two years at Cambridge where he gained the Chancellor's 
prize by his poem, Timbuctoo. His father's death in 1830 compelled 
him to leave college without a degree. ItuMemoriam was written in 
memory of his dear friend and schoolmate, Arthur Hallam, who died 
suddenly in 1833. In 1850 three important events in Tennyson's life 
occurred — his marriage to Miss Emily Sellwood, his appointment as 
poet laureate, and the publishing of In Memoriam. In 1853 he es- 
tablished his home at Farringford on the Isle of Wight. In his later 
years he had a summer home at Aldworth, where he died Oct. 6, 1892. 
At his funeral services in Westminster Abbey, Oct. 12, his beautiful 



The poets have made life brighter, happier, more hopeful to us by teach- 
ing us to see, and what to see, and how to see ; by opening our minds to the 
true, our eyes to the beautiful ; by opening our ears to the voices of the moun- 
tain and the sea; by quickening our sensibility to the sweet influences of the 
fields and of the ocean. A thousand things which we should have never noticed, 
in which we should never have read God's autographs of beauty and of blessing, 
Tennyson has now taught us to observe with delight and love. 

Archdeacon F. W. Farrar. 



222 BRITISH AUTHORS 

poem, Crossing the Bar, was sung by the choir, and Tennyson's 
body was placed in the Poets' Corner by the side of that of Robert 
Browning. 

References. — Tennyson's Poems (complete) Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co. (Household Ed. $1.50, Cabinet Ed. $1.00); Alfred Waugh's 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson : A Study of His Life and Work ( McMillan 
& Co. $2.00); Stedman's Victorian Poets; Mrs. Griswold's Home 
Life of Great Authors; Van Dyke's The Poetry of Tennyson ; The 
Review of Reviews, Dec, 1892; A Tennyson Retrospect, by J. S. Ward 
in Atlantic, Sept., 1879; William Howitt's Homes and Haunts of the 
British Poets ; W. E. Gladstone's Gleanings of Past Years; Tenny- 
son, His Art and Relation to Modern Life, by Stopford Brooke. 

Character and Criticism. — The poet has convictions: he is not a 
pupil, but a master, and reaches intellectual greatness. His verses 
still bewitch youths and artists by their sentiments and beauty, but 
their thought takes hold of thinkers and men of the world. . . . We 
■come back to the avowal that in technical excellence, as an artist in 
verse, Alfred Tennyson is the greatest of modern poets. 

E. C. Stedman. 

I v et fools and sensualists say what they will, it is the glory 
of Browning and Tennyson that in an age which so much prurient 
literature has defiled with the empoisoned honey of French realism, 
they did not grope in the foul ab} 7 sses of human degradation, but 
«ver lifted their eyes to the true grandeur of humanity crowned with 
spiritual fire. — Archdeacon F. W. Farrar. 

Find the following quotations from Tennyson, study- 
ing the poems in which they occur: 

1. I am a part of all that I have met. 

2. Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
And simple faith than Norman blood. 

3. Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose 

runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process 
of the suns. 



Eife carries a greater than Caesar and his fortunes, frail skiff as it is ; it 
carries a soul and its eternity. The first bends of the brook tell which side of 
the watershed the river will take, and on which side of a continent it will meet 
the ocean, and so with life.— Dr. Geikie : Entering on Life. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 223 

4. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. 

•5. But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still! 

6. The splendor falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story. 

7. The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf 'd or godlike, bond or free. 

8. Her eyes are homes of silent prayer. 

9. Wearing the white flower of a blameless life. 

10. It was my duty to have loved the highest. 

11. There did a thousand memories roll upon him, 
Unspeakable for sadness. 

12. Happy he 

With such a mother! faith in womankind 
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 
Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 
He shall not blind his soul with clay. 

13. More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. 

14. I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
When I have crost the bar. 

Note. — For selections for memorizing see Irish's Treasured 
Thoughts, page 102. 

Literary Gleaning. — Do you own a copy of Tennyson's poems 
and do you mark and memorize the noblest lines? Quote fine selec- 
tions from Locksley Hall, In Memoriam, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
The Princess, The Brook, Enoch Arden, and Crossing the Bar. Give a 
brief sketch of Tennyson's life. Tell about Arthur Hallam. Which 
of Tennyson's poems do you like best ? Have you read The Idyls of 
the King? Tell about the following poems: The Lady of Shalott, 
The Miller's Daughter, Dora, Lady Clare, Maud, Elaine, Enoch 
Arden. Quote Dr. Geikie's beautiful thought about "life." 



►> 



224 BRITISH AUTHORS 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 

(1806-1861) 

The quiet brow; the face so frail and fair 
For such a voice of song ; the steady eye, 
Where shone the spirit fated to outwear 
Its fragile house; — and on her features lie 
The soft half-shadows of her drooping hair. 

Bayard Taylor : Casa Guidi Windows.. 

Take the volume of her collected writings,— with so much that we might 
omit, with so many weaknesses and faults, — and what riches it contains ! How- 
different, too, from other recent work, thoroughly her own, eminently that of a 
woman, — a Christian sibyl, priestess of the melody, heroism, and religion of the 
modern world! — E. C. Stedman. 

Among Mrs. Browning's best poems are Aurora Leigh, 
Rhyme of the Duchess May, Lady Geraldine 's Courtship, 
The Cry of the Children, To Flush My Dog, Comfort, 
The Cry of the Human, The House of Clouds, The Sleep, 
Cowper's Grave, The Lady's Yes, Sonnets from the Portu- 
guese, Casa Guidi Windows, A Musical Instrument, and 
(her last poem) The North and the South. Aurora Leigh 
is her greatest poem, but Sonnets from the Portuguese are 
the most highly poetical and beautiful. 

Biography.- -Elizabeth Barrett (Browning) was born at Carleton 
Hall, Durham, Eng., Mar. 6, 1806. Her parents were wealthy, and 
she seems to have been the idol of her kindred. She was always 
fragile in body. She became a classical scholar, reading Greek and 
Hebrew literature in the original. She loved books. For autobio- 
graphical hints concerning her early life, see the first part of Aurora 
Leigh. Married Robert Browning in 1846. The marriage was a very 
happy one. In her Sonnets from the Portuguese addressed to him 
and his By the Fireside, etc., is told a very beautiful love-story. 
They lived in Florence, Italy. Mrs. Browning is ranked first among 
female poets by many able critics. She has also been called " Shakes- 



No life 
Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife 
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby. 

Owen Meredith: Lucile. 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 225 

peare's daughter " because of her remarkable genius. At their 
Italian home, Casa Guidi, in Florence, Mrs. Browning died June 29, 
1861. On the evening of July 1, as the sun was sinking behind the 
hills, her body was laid to rest in the beautiful English burial ground 
at Florence. One who stood by the open grave writes : " The distant 
mountains hid their faces in a misty veil, and the tall cypress trees 
of the cemeterj 7 swayed and sighed as nature's mourners." She was 
greatly loved by the people of Florence. They placed a memorial 
tablet in front of " Casa Guidi " on which is the following glowing 
tribute : " Here she wrote and died who by her song created a golden 
link between Italy and England." 

Here bend Italian love and English pride 
Above her grave, — and one remoter land, 
Frecas her prayers would make it, at their side. 

Bayard Taylor : Casa Guidi Windows. 
References. — Bayard Taylor's poem, Casa Guidi Windows ; Hil- 
lard's Six Months i?i Italy ; Stedman's Victorian Poets ; Elizabeth 
Barrett Browning, by E. C. Stedman in Scribner's Mag., Nov., 1873; 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, by Kate Field in Atlantic, Sept., 1861 ; 
LitteWs Living Age, July-Sept., 1861 ; and Letters of Elizabeth Bar- 
rett Browning , edited by R. H. Home. 

Character and Criticism.— The Brownings are a happy couple, — 
happy in their affection and their genius. He is a fine, fresh, open 
nature, full of life and spring, and evidently has little of the dreamy 
element of Wordsworth and others. She is a little concentrated 
nightingale, living in a bower of curls, her heart throbbing against 
the bars of the world. — T. G. Appleton: Letter to Longfellow. 

Mrs. Browning is in man)* respects the correlative of her hus- 
band. As he is full of manly power, so she is a type of the most 
sensitive and delicate womanhood. ... I have never seen a human 
frame which seemed so nearly a transparent veil for a celestial and 
immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire enclosed in a shell of pearL 
. . . Nor is she more remarkable for genius and learning, than for 
sweetness of temper, tenderness of heart, depth of feeling, and purity 
of spirit. It is a privilege to know such beings singly and sepa- 



When God fashioned the germ of the rose-tree, he made possible the 
beauty of its flower. When the divine Artist would produce a poem, he plants a 
germ of it in a human soul, and out of that soul the poem springs and grows as 
from the rose-tree the rose.— Garfield. 



226 BRITISH AUTHORS 

rately, but to see their powers quickened, and their happiness 
rounded, by the sacred tie of marriage, is a cause for peculiar and 
lasting gratitude. — G. S. Hiixard : Six Months in Italy. 

I think of one whose genius was angelic; who swept all the 
chords of human passion with fingers that shook with the stress of 
their inspiration ; who soared and sang as never woman soared and 
sang before : whose every uttered word leaped from her lips like a 
bird, radiant in plumage and glorious in music; yet whose heart was 
the dwelling-place of an all-controlling, all-subordinating Christian 
purpose. She looked out upon humanity with a love ineffable even 
to her. She looked up to Heaven with a Christian adoration to which 
even her marvellous gift of language could give no fitting expres- 
sion. — J. G. Holland: Plain Talks, Fashion. 

Find the following selections in Mrs. Browning's Au- 
rora Leigh : 

1. All actual heroes are essential men, 
And all men possible heroes. 

2. They know a simple, merry, tender knack 
Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, 

And stringing pretty words that make no sense, 
And kissing full sense into empty words. 

3. Life means, be sure, 
Both heart and head, — both active, both complete, 
And both in earnest. 

4. Better far 
Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means 
Than a sublime art frivolously. 

5. It takes a soul 

To move a body : it takes a high-souled man 
To move the masses. 

6. Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God ; 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes. 



Poetry is the search after and the delineation of the ideal. 

DeTocqueville. 

Poetry is the steeping- of the palpable and familiar in the glorious dyes 
of the ideal. — Parke Godwin. 



ROBERT BROWNING 227 

Literary Gleaning. — Have you a copy of Mrs. Browning's 
poems and have you read Aurora Leigh? Give a brief sketch of 
Mrs. Browning's life. What do Taylor, Stedman, Appleton, and Hol- 
land say of Mrs. Browing? Name her best poems and quote the finest 
lines. Quote Owen Meredith's beautiful thought about "life" and 
Garfield's fine gem about the " divine artist." 



ROBERT BROWNING 

(1812-1889) 

Since Chaucer was alive and hale 
No man hath walked along our roads with step 
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue 
So varied in discourse.— IvAndor. 

Among Browning's best poems are Pippa Passes, A Blot 
in the 'Scutcheon, How They Brought the Good News from 
Ghent to Aix, Evelyn Hope, De Gustibus, Home Thoughts 
from Abroad, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, My Last Duchess, 
Fra Lippo Lippi, Herve Riel, Andrea del Sarto, Rabbi Ben 
Ezra, and The Boy and the Angel. There are fine pas- 
sages in Asola?ido and many others. 1 

Biography. — Robert Browning was born near London, Eng.,May 
7, 1812. Educated at home and in private schools, chiefly. At twenty 
he visited Italy and spent several years there in study. Pauline, his 
first poem, appeared in 1833, Paracelsus, in 1835. Married Elizabeth 
Barrett in 1846. Lived in Italy until her death in 1861. Browning 
died in Venice, Italy, Dec. 12, 1889. His body rests in Westminster 
Abbey. 

lHis most beautiful poems are those addressed to his wife, such as One 
Word More, By the Fireside, and that exalted apostrophe written after her death, 
beginning " O I,yric Love ! " See The Ring and the Book, close of bk. 1. 

The fine gold that makes the crown of intellect costs weary fires, and dark 
toils, and long minute working, before it reaches the brows that wear it. The 
God hidden in the sculptor's marble stands forth only as the reward of unwea- 
ried toil.— Dr. Geikie : Entering on Life. 



228 BRITISH AUTHORS 

References.— Browning's Complete Poetical Works, 1 vol., Cam- 
bridge Ed. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., $3.00) ; Sharp's Life of Brown- 
ing ; Dowden's Studies in Literature ; Stedman's Victorian Poets ; 
Mrs. Griswold's Home Life of Great Authors ; Alexander's Intro- 
duction to the Poetry of Browning ; Robert Browning, by Edmund 
Gosse ; Life and Letters, by Mrs. Sutherland Orr. 

Character and Criticism. — His verse is like a springless wagon on 
a rough road. He is full of bounce and vigor, but it is of the kind 
that bruises the flesh and makes one bite his tongue. — John Bur- 
roughs. 

Browning's verse with intellect, thought, power, grace, all the 
charms in detail which poets should have, rings, after all, like a bell 
of lead. — J. A. Froude. 

His style is that of a man caught in a morass of ideas through 
which he has to travel, — wearily floundering, grasping here and 
there, and often sinking deeper until there seems no prospect of 
getting through.— E. C. Stedman. 

Browning's life and writings show the noble spirit- 
uality and earnestness of a great nature, and breathe the 
spirit of faith and hope. He has written his own biog- 
raphy in one stanza: 

" One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake."* 

Selections. 

Love, hope, fear, faith, — these make humanity, 

These are its sign and note and character.— Paracelsus. 

The year's at the spring 

And day's at the morn; 

Morning's at seven ; 

The hillside's dew-pearled; 

The lark's on the wing ; 

The snail's on the thorn : 

God's in his heaven — 

All's right with the world! 

Pippa's song in Pippa Passes. 

-'•Epilogue to Asolando, Browning's last poem. 



JEAN INGELOW 229 

Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made : 
Our times are in his hand 
Who saith, "A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be 
afraid!" — Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

Literary Gleaning.— What do Landor, Burroughs, Froude, 
and Stedman say of Browning and his writings? Name some of his 
best poems. Give a brief sketch of his life. Have you read Pippa 
Passes, Home Thoughts from Abroad, How They Brought the Good 
News from Ghent to Aix, and The Pied Piper of Hamelin f What 
does Dr. Geikie say about "the crown of intellect"? 



JEAN INGELOW* 

(1830- ) 

As the voice of Mrs. Browning grew silent, the songs of Miss Ingelow be- 
gan, and had instant and merited popularity. They sprung up suddenly and 
tunefully as skylarks from the daisy-spangled, hawthorn-bordered meadows of 
old England, with a blitheness long unknown, and in their idyllic underflights 
moved with the tenderest currents of human life. — E. C. Stedman. 

Among the best poems of Jean Ingelow are The High 
Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, Songs of Seven, Winstan- 
ley, The Long White Seam, A Reverie, Songs of the Night 
Watches, and Divided. She has also written novels, Off 
the Skelligs, Do?i fohn, A Motto Changed, etc., and a col- 
lection of stories for children. Her works are popular in 
both England and America, 

Selections. 

1. When our thoughts are born 

Though they be good and humble, one should mind 
How they are reared, or some will go astray 
And shame their mother. — Gladys and her Island. 

-Born, Suffolk, England. 



230 BRITISH AUTHORS 

2. Tears are the showers that fertilize this world, 
And memory of things precious keepeth warm 
The heart that once did hold them. — Regret. 

3. They sang, and would not stop, 
While drop, and drop, and drop, 

I heard the melted rime in sunshine fall; 

And narrow wandering rills, 

Where leaned the daffodils, 
Murmured and murmured on, and that was all. 

A Reverie. 

4. Crowds of bees are giddy with clover, 

Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet, 
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over 

Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet. — Divided. 

5. Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, 

Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall! 
A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure, 

And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall! 
Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure, 

God that is over us all ! — Songs of Seven. 

Literary Gleaning. — Quote what Stedman says about Mrs. 
Browning and Miss Ingelow and his tribute beginning " These 
women." Have you read Divided, The Songs of Seven, and Off 
the Skelligs? Name Miss Ingelow's best poems and quote favorite 
lines. What does Dr. Geikie say of "the Christian ideal of woman"? 



In his Victorian Poets speaking of Mrs. Browning, Jean Ingelow, and Ade- 
laide Proctor, Stedman says : " These women, with their melodious voices, spot- 
less hearts, and holy aspirations, are the priestesses of the oracle. Their minis- 
try is sacred ; in their presence the most irreverent become subdued." 

The Christian ideal of woman is the highest philosophy as well as the 
grandest justice, for to raise the mother is to raise the race. We may fall below 
the standard, but it is still acknowledged. Home, with its purity, peace, and 
love, is a gift of Christianity ; to it alone we owe those charms of wife, or mother, 
or daughter, which make it what it is. — Dr. Geikie: Entering on Life. 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 231 

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 

(1800-1859) 

Few authors have written more eloquently of freedom, or paid truer and 
nobler homage to its advocates and martyrs ; and few have opened hotter vials 
of wrath upon bigotry, tyranny, and all forms of legislative fraud. 

E- P. Whipple. 

He has the strength of ten men, immense memory, fun, fire, learning, pol- 
itics, manners, and pride, and talks all the time in a steady torrent.— Emerson. 

The traveler in Australia, visiting one settler's hut after another, finds 
again and again that the settler's third book, after the Bible and Shakespeare, 
is some work by Macaulay. — Matthew Arnold. 

Macaulay's principal works are his History of England 
and his Essays,. The Essays on Milton, Warren Hastings \ 
Byron, Addison, Johnson, Chatham, and Goldsmith are 
among the best. He has also written some poems which 
have much merit in spite of some poetical defects. The 
Lays of Ancient Rome which include Horatius, The Battle 
of Lake Regillus, Virginia, and The Prophecy of Capys are 
quite popular. 

Biography. — T. B. Macaulay, essayist and historian, was born at 
Rothley Temple in Leicestershire, Oct. 25, 1800. He was a very pre- 
cocious child, " talked like printed books," compiled a Compendium 
of Universal History, and wrote the poem, The Battle of Cheviot, 
when he was eight years old. " The quantity of reading Tom has 
poured in, and the quantity of writing he has poured out, is astonish- 
ing," said his friend and confidante, Hannah More. Educated at a 
private school and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Took the Chan- 
cellor's prize for English on Pompeii and Evening, in the two suc- 
cessive years, 1819 and 1820. Studied law and was admitted to the 
bar. His Essay on Milton, published in the Edinburgh Review in 
1825, made him famous. Carlyle once expressed what he thought as 
he looked at Macaulay's features with their strong Scotch character- 
istics : '•Well, anyone can see that you are an honest, good sort of a 



A young man often wonders how he does not get on, or should be disliked, 
while conscious of abilities, generous, affectionate, and the like, forgetting some 
fault that taints all his good, like a dead dog- in a green lane. 

Dr. Geikie : Entering on Life. 



232 BRITISH AUTHORS 

fellow, made out of oat-meal." Macaulay believed that knowledge 
could be made popular, saying : " I should not be satisfied unless I 
produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last 
fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies." His History of 
England was immensely popular in both England and America, hav- 
ing a larger sale than any novel of that time. Macaulay loved Eng- 
land, and said : " An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality 
in Utopia." He died at his home, Holly Lodge, Kensington, Lon- 
don, Dec. 28, 1859. His body rests in the Poets' Corner, Westminster 
Abbey. 

References.— Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay ; Macaulay in Whip- 
ple's Essays and Reviews; also Lives by Milman, Morrison, and F. 
Arnold; Miss Martineau's Biographical Sketches, Nil Nisi Bonum, 
by Thackeray in Harper's Mag., Mar., 1860 ; Lord Macaulay and 
His Friends, by R. H. Stoddard in Harper's Mag., June -July, 
1876; Gladstone's Gleanings of Past Years. 

Character and Criticism. — As to its clearness, one may read a sen- 
tence of Macaulay twice to judge of its full force, never to compre- 
hend its meaning. His English was pure, both in idiom and in 
words, pure to fastidiousness; . . . every word must be genuine 
English, nothing that approached real vulgarity, nothing that had 
not the stamp of popular use, or the authority of sound English 
writers, nothing unfamiliar to the common ear. — Dean Milman. 

Selections. 

The hearts of men are their books ; events are their tutors ; 
great actions are their eloquence. — Essay, Conversation Touching 
the Civil War. 

Then none was for a party ; 

Then all were for the state; 
Then the great man helped the poor, 
And the poor man loved the great. 
Then lands were fairly portioned ; 

Then spoils were fairly sold: 
The Romans were like brothers 

In the brave days of old. — Horatius. 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Whipple, Emerson, Arnold, 
and Dean Milman say of Macaulay and his writings ? Quote Carlyle's 
remark about Macaulay. What did Macaulay say about "the last 
fashionable novel"? Tell about his History of England. Have you 



CHARLES DICKENS 233 

read it? Tell about The Lays of Ancient Rome, and quote the lines 
from Horatius, beginning, " Then out spake brave Horatius." Have 
you read Macaulay's Essays on Milton, Goldsmith, Addison, Bacon, 
and Warren Hastings? Tell about Macaulay's description of the 
trial of Warren Hastings, beginning, " The place was worthy of such 
a trial," and closing with Burke's, " I impeach Warren Hastings of 
high crimes and misdemeanors," etc. 



CHARLES DICKENS 

(1812-1870) 

He is the greatest of all of them. Such fertility, such Shakesperian 
breadth — there is erfough of him; you feel as you do when you see the 
ocean.— O. W. Holmes. 

The good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly, noble Dickens,— every 
inch of him an Honest Man. — Carl yle. 

The same master-hand which drew the sorrows of the English poor drew 
also the picture of the unselfish kindness, the courageous patience, the tender 
thoughtfulness, that lie concealed behind many a coarse exterior, in many a 
rough heart, in many a degraded home.— Dean Stanley. 

Of the sixteen novels written by Charles Dickens, 
David Copperfield, Dombey and Son, Nicholas Nickleby , 
Old Curiosity Shop, Our Mutual Friend, Oliver Twist, 
and. The Pickwick Papers are among the best. Dickens 
will be remembered longest, perhaps, by his Christmas 
Carol, Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes, and other 
Christmas stories. Thackeray wrote of the Christmas 
Carol: "It seems to me a national benefit, and to every 
man or woman who reads it a personal kindness." And 
Kate Field writes : ' ' Hungry ears have listened to no 
better hymn of praise; hungry eyes have feasted on no 
truer or more loving counsel." 

Biography. — Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth, Eng., 
Feb. 7, 1812. His early life was full of hardships. David Copperfield 
is autobiographical and tells of these early struggles He was fond 
of reading and by the time he was nine years of age had read Don 



234 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Quixote, The Vicar of Wakefield, The Arabian Nights, and other good 
books. After the family removed to London he rambled about until 
he became thoroughly familiar with the city. He studied short- 
hand and became a reporter on a London paper. He wrote a num- 
ber of sketches for the Evening Chronicle which he signed " Boz," 
his little sister's pronunciation of Moses, a name he called a younger 
brother. His first book was a collection of these articles called 
Sketches by Boz. His next book, Pickwick Papers, published as a 
serial, made him famous. He visited America in 1842 and again in 
1867. In his last visit he gave readings in cities. For a description 
of these visits see Yesterdays With Authors. Dickens purchased 
Gad's Hill, made famous by Shakespeare, and made it his home. 
"There is no prettier place than Gad's Hill in all England for the 
earliest and latest flowers, and Dickens chose it, when he had arrived 
at the fulness of his fame and prosperity, as the home in which he 
most wished to spend the remainder of his days," says Fields. Here 
he died on June 9, 1870. His remains were interred in Westminster 
Abbey on the 14th. 

References.— Forster's Life of Dickens; Fields's Yesterdays 
With Authors ; Jerrold's Best of All Good Company ; Taine's Eng. 
Lit.; Kate Field's Pen Pictures; Pierce's Dickens Dictionary ; A 
Visit to Charles Dickens, by Hans Christian Andersen in Eclectic 
Mag., May-August, 1864 ; Footprints of Charles Dickens, by M. D. 
Conway, Harper's Mag., Sept., 1870; Christmas Carol, Eng. Classic 
Series No. 32. 

Character and Criticism. — Daniel Webster said that Dickens had 
already done more to ameliorate the condition of the English poor 
than all the statesmen Great Britain had sent into Parliament. 
During the unceasing demands upon his time and thought, he 
found opportunities of visiting personally those haunts of suffering 
in London which needed the keen eye and sympathetic heart to 
bring them before the public for relief. Whoever has accompanied 
him, as I have, on his midnight walks into the cheap lodging-houses 
provided for London's lowest poor, cannot have failed to learn 
lessons never to be forgotten. Newgate and Smithfield were lifted 
out of their abominations by his eloquent pen, and many a hospital 
is to-day all the better charity for having been visited and watched 
by Charles Dickens.— James T. Fields. 

That art is truest which sees children at play or in their 
mother's arms, not in hospitals or graveyards. It is the infirmity 



CHARLES DICKENS .235 

of humanitarianism and of Dickens, its great exponent, that it 
regards death as the great fact of life ; that it seeks to ward it off as 
the greatest of evils, and when it comes, hastens to cover it out 
of sight with flowers. . . . There is a nobler way, and literature 
and art are slowly confessing it, as they devote their strength to that 
which is eternal in life, not to that which is perishable. 

H. E. Scudder : Childhood in Lit. and Art. 

Selections. 

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her 
little bird, a poor, slight thing the pressure of a finger would have 
crushed, was stirring nimbly in its cage, and the strong heart of its 
child-mistress was mute and motionless forever ! 

The Old Curiosity Shop. 
Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green, 
That creepeth o'er ruins old! 
Of right choice food are his meals I ween, 
In his cell so lone and- cold. 

The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, 
To pleasure his dainty whim: 
And the mouldering dust that years have made, 
Is a merry meal for him. 

Creeping where no life is seen, 
A rare old plant is the Ivy green. 

Pickwick Papers. 

Literary Geeaning. — What do Dr. Holmes, Carlyle, Dean 
Stanley, and Fields say of Dickens and his writings? Name the 
best of Dickens's novels. Which is your favorite ? Quote Scudder's 
criticism on Dickens, beginning, "That art is truest." What does 
Fields say of Gad's Hill ? Give a brief sketch of the life of Charles 
Dickens. What had he read before he was nine years old ? Tell 
about his visits to America. Have you read Charles Dickens in 
Fields's Yesterdays With Authors? Tell about Mr. Pecksniff, Mr. 
Pickwick, Pip, Sam Weller, Sydney Carton, Peggotty, Dora, Micaw- 
ber, Uriah Heep, Squeers, Little Nell, Barkis, Mr. Gradgrind, David 
Copperfield, and Captain Cuttle. 

>~^ • 



236 BRITISH AUTHORS 

GEORGE ELIOT 
(1819-1880) 

The brilliant, quiet, magnetic woman, whose face reflected her feelings 
with half shadows, half lights, yet who seemed so strong in her personality that 
it was impossible for a moment to forget the woman in the genius. 

Mrs. JOHN I^illie. 

George Eliot's novels are Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam 
Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix 
Holt, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda, Her last work 
was a volume of essays entitled The Impressions of Thco- 
phrastus Such. Her best known poems are The Spanish 
Gypsy, Armgart, How Lisa Loved the King, Two Lovers, 
Brother and Sister, and The Choir Invisible. The two 
poems last mentioned are the best. 

Biography. — Mary Ann Evans, "George Eliot,"* was born at 
Arbury Farm in Warwickshire, England, Nov. 22, 1819. Her father, 
Robert Evans, was a substantial farmer whose traits of character are 
partially reproduced in Adam Bede and Caleb Garth. At Griff House, 
" a charming red-brick, ivy-covered house on the Arbury estate," 
George Eliot spent the first twenty-one years of her life. Maggie 
Tulliver in the Mill on the Floss is in part the George Eliot of those 
years. Celia in Middlemarch is a partial portrait of her only sister 
Christiana ("Chrissy "), and glimpses of her only brother are seen in 
Tom Tulliver. In one of her most beautiful poems, Brother and 
Sister, she says of this brother : 

"If he said 'Hush!' I tried to hold my breath; 
Wherever he said 'Come!' I stepped in faith." 

And the following, the sweetest lines George Eliot ever wrote: 

" Plis years with others must the sweeter be 
For those brief days he spent in loving me." 



-This name was selected because George was Mr. Uwes's first name, 
; and Eliot was a good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word." 



GEORGE ELIOT 237 

George Eliot had the advantages of the best private schools of 
that day. She was a constant reader of the best books, Milton being 
an especial favorite. At the age of twenty-one, her mother having 
died a few years before, she and her father removed to Coventry 
where she had the companionship of many great men and women. 
Later in life she had as acquaintances and friends, Herbert Spencer, 
Tennyson, Browning, and most of the literary people of that time. 
Her union with the noted writer, George Henry Lewes, in 1854 was 
the most important event of her life, as it was through his influence 
that she wrote her first novel. Mr. Lewes died in 1878. She married 
John Walter Cross, a London banker, May 6, 1880. She died at Cheyne 
Walk, Chelsea, London, Dec. 22, 1880. " Her body rests in Highgate 
Cemetery, in the grave next to Mr. Lewes. In sleet and snow, on a 
bitter day — the 29th December — very many whom she knew, very 
many whom she'' did not know, pressed to her grave-side with trib- 
utes of tears and fiowers." 

References. — George Eliofs Life, by her husband, J. W. Cross, 
is the standard biography ; Cooke's George Eliot : A Critical Study 
of Life, Writings, and Philosophy ; Parkinson's Scenes from the 
George Eliot Country ; Woolson's George Eliot and her Heroines ; 
George Eliot and the Novel, by Edward Eggleston in The Critic, 
Jan. 15, 1881 ; George Eliofs Two Marriages, by Rev. Chas. G. 
Ames. 

Note. — For valuable criticisms of novels and novel-reading, 
see Moulton's Four- Years of Novel Reading, Mary Fisher's Twenty- 
Five Letters on English Authors, and Novels of the Season, in 
Whipple's Essays and Reviews. 

Character and Criticism. — It is always the story of a soul she 
tells. We are instantly enveloped in a pyschological atmosphere; 
for while some writers keep one in the outer world, and give only in 
lightning flashes furtive glances into the inner life, she takes us 
there, and there we remain, and thence look out upon the surface of 
existence. — R. G. Moui/Ton : Four Years of Novel-Reading. 

In the following description of Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on 
the Floss, George Eliot Isells of her own youthful longings and as- 
pirations : " A creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that 
was beautiful and glad ; thirsty for all knowledge ; with an ear strain- 
ing after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to 
her; with a blind unconscious yearning for something that would 



238 BRITISH AUTHORS 

link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and 
give her soul a sense of home in it." 

Concerning her first book, Scenes of Clerical Life, she writes : 
" I have had much sympathy from my readers in Blackwood, and feel 
a deep satisfaction in having done a bit of faithful work that will per- 
haps remain, like a primrose root in the hedgerow, and gladden and 
chasten human hearts in years to come." 

We generally began our reading at Witley with some chapters 
of the Bible, which was a very precious and sacred book to her, not 
only from early associations, but also from the profound conviction 
of its importance in the development of the religious life of mam 
She particularly enjoyed reading aloud some of the finest chapters of 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and St. Paul's Epistles. . . . The Bible and our 
elder English poets best suited the organ-like tones of her voice, 
which required, for their full effect, a certain solemnity and majesty 
of rhythm. — J. W. Cross: George Eliofs Life. 

Find the following selections in the writings of George 
KHot and tell what gave rise to the thought : 

When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our 
tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. — Adam Bede. 

Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds. 

Adam Bede. 

No man can escape this vitiating effect of an offence against his 
own sentiment of right. — Adam Bede. 

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no 
childhood in it — if it were not the earth where the same flowers 
come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny 
fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass — the same hips 
and haws on the autumn hedgerows — the same redbreasts that we 
used to call " God's birds ", because they did no harm to the precious 
crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything 
is known, and loved because it is known? — Mill on the Floss. 

If there is wickedness in the streets, your steps should shine 



Our deeds shall travel with us from afar, 

And what we have been makes us what we are. 

George EJliot. 



GEORGE ELIOT 239 

with the light of purity ; if there is a cry of anguish, you should be 
there to still it. — Romola. 

A woman's rank 
Lies in the fullness of her womanhood : 
Therein alone she is royal. — Armgart. 

Long years have left their writing on my brow, 
But yet the freshness and the dew-fed beam 
Of those young mornings are about me now, 
When we two wandered toward the far-off stream. 

Brother and Sister. 

May I reach 
That purest heaven, be to other souls 
The cup of strength in some great agony, 
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, 
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty — 
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, 
And in diffusion ever more intense. 
So shall I join the choir invisible 
Whose music is the gladness of the world. 

The Choir Invisible. 

Literary Gleaning. — Have you read Adam Bede, The Mill 
on the Floss, and the poems, Brother and Sister and The Choir 
Invisible? Tell about George Eliot's childhood. What did she 
read, and which author was her favorite ? Tell of the noted people 
who were her friends. What does she say about her first book, 
Scenes of Clerical Life? What does Mr. Cross say about their 
"reading at Witley"? Do you remember what George Eliot said 
about Emerson ? Tell about Adam Bede, Dorothea, Hetty Sorrel, 
Romola, Maggie Tulliver, Tito, Dinah, Rosamond, Daniel Deronda, 
Celia, Gwendolen, and Mary Garth. 



240 BRITISH AUTHORS 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 

(1811-1863) 

There was a genuine Thackeray flavor in everything he was willing to say 
or to write. He detected, with unfailing skill, the good or the vile wherever it 
existed. He had an unerring eye, a firm understanding, and abounding truth. 
. . . He had, indeed, an awful insight, with a world of solemn tenderness and 
simplicity, in his composition. — James T. Fields. 

Thackeray is best known by his novels Vanity Fair, 
Pendennis, The New comes, The Adventures of Philip, Henry 
Esmond* and The Virginians. Some of his other works are 
Book of Snobs, The Paris Sketch-Book, Irish Sketch-Book, 
Roundabout Papers, etc. Also the lectures, The Four 
Georges and The English Humorists . He also wrote some 
clever verse, such as The Age of Wisdom, and The Ballads 
of Policeman X. 

Biography. — W. M. Thackeray was born at Calcutta, India, July 
18,1811. Came to England in 1817. Was educated at the Charter- 
house School, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, afterwards 
residing for a time at Weimar for study. He studied art at Rome 
and Paris. Became noted as a caricaturist. During his first visit to 
America, in 1852-53, he delivered his lectures on English Humorists, 
and on his second visit, in 1855-56. on The Four Georges. He died 
very suddenly Dec. 24, 1863. He wrote under the pen-names, Michael 
Angelo Titmarsh, George Fitzboodle, Charles Jeames Yellowplush, 
Ikey Solomon, Fat Contributor, and Manlius Pennialinus. 

References. — Fields's Yesterdays with Authors ; A Shelf of Old 
Books, by Mrs. Fields ; In Memoriam, by Charles Dickens, Cornhill 
Mag., Mar., 1864; Thackeray, by Anthony Trollope, in Eng. Men of 
Let. ; Letters of Thackeray . 

Character and Criticism.— That which especially distinguishes his 
works among the crowd of English novels that load our shelves and 



-Thackeray considered Henry Esmond his best work. He said of it ; 
stand by this book, and am willing to leave it, when I go, as my card." 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 241 

tables, lies in his portrayal of human character as it is. Painting 
men and women as he meets them at a dinner or watches them in 
the Park, he gives us no paragons of perfection, forms of exquisite 
beauty, enshrining minds of unsullied purity, or that opposite ideal 
so familiar to the readers of romance ; but men and women, with all 
their faults and foibles, with their modest virtues shrinking from 
exhibition, or their meanness well deserving the censor's lash. 

W. F. Coeeier. 
Now, if we are to be interested by rascally actions, let us have 
them with plain faces, and let them be performed, not by virtuous 
philosophers, but by rascals. Another clever class of novelists adopt 
the contrary system and create interest by making their rascals per- 
form virtuous actions. Against these popular plans, we here solemnly 
appeal. We say, Let your rogues in novels act like rogues, and your 
honest men like'honest men. Don't let us have any juggling and 
thimble-rigging with virtue and vice, so that at the end of three vol- 
umes the bewildered reader shall not know which is which ; don't let 
us find ourselves kindling at the generous qualities of thieves and 
sympathizing with the rascality of noble hearts. — Thackeray. 

Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would say to him : 
Try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and life, that 
is the most wholesome society ; learn to admire rightly ; the great 
pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admire; they 
admire great things; narrow spirits admire basely and worship 
meanly.— Thackeray: English Humorists. 

Literary GeEaning.— What do Fields and Collier say of 
Thackeray and his writings? Have you read Vanity Fair, Henry 
Esmond, and The Virginians ? What did Thackeray say of Henry 
Esmond? What does Thackeray say of " rascally actions " ? Quote 
Thackeray's "counsel to any young hearer." Which of Thackeray's 
novels gives an account of Braddock's defeat? Have you read 
Thackeray in Fields's Yesterdays With Authors and what Mrs. 
Fields says of him in A Shelf of Old Books? Tell about Arthur 
Pendennis, Mrs. Bute Crawley, Becky Sharp, Amelia Sedley, Lady 
Castlewood, Henry Esmond, Colonel Newcome, and Ethel Newcome. 



•>-<• 



242 BRITISH AUTHORS 

THOMAS CARLYLE 

(1795-1881) 

I would go at all times further to see Carlyle than any man alive. 

Charles Dickens. 

The most original writer and powerful teacher of the age. 

John Forster. 

But, with all deductions, he remains the profoundest critic and the most 
dramatic imagination of modern times. — J. R. Lowell, 

Carlyle's principal works are Life of Schiller, Sartor 
Resartus, History of the French Revolution, Heroes and 
Hero- Worship, Past and Present, Life of Frederick the 
Great, Life of Cromwell, Reminiscences , and Miscellaneous 
Essays. The essays on Bur?is, foh?ison, Ric liter, and Sir 
Walter Scott are among the best. His address On the 
Choice of Books is excellent. 

Biography. — Thomas Carlyle was born Dec. 4, 1795, in the little 
Scotch village of Ecclefechan, in Annandale — "a fine pastoral dis- 
trict, famous in Border story, and rich in ancient castles and Roman 
remains." " His home was the prudent, God-fearing household of a 
Scotch peasant." Spent some time in Edinburgh Univ. but left 
without taking a degree. Taught mathematics in Annan Academy 
and was master of a school in Kirkcaldy. Settled in Edinburgh and 
studied law. Began writing for magazines. Studied German, which 
revealed to him " a new heaven and a new earth." Married Jane 
Welsh in 1825. After three years in Edinburgh they settled at 
Craigenputtoch. In this country home they lived many years and 
entertained Emerson, Longfellow, and many other noted literary peo- 
ple. In the midst of his greatest honors he was crushed by the death 
of his wife. His last years were spent at Cheyne Row, Chelsea, Lon- 
don, where he died Feb. 4, 1881. According to his wish his body rests 
in the little churchyard at Ecclefechan, where he spent his childhood. 
When we think how Carlyle forgot to be gentle and affectionate to 
his devoted wife, " for forty years the true and loving helpmate of 
her husband," but was often seen in his lonely old age weeping over 
her grave, we remember George Eliot's beautiful thought which all 
should learn by heart: "Oh, the anguish of that thought, that we 
can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, 



THOMAS CARLYLE 243 

for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, 
for the little reverence we shewed to that sacred human soul that 
lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God has given us 
to know ! " 

References. — Froude's Life of Carlyle ; Letters of fane Welsh 
Carlyle ; Carlyle in Lowell's Literary Essays ; Carlyle in Emerson's 
English Traits ; Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, by C. E. Norton ; 
Eroude's Early Days of Thomas Carlyle in Nineteenth Century, 
July, 1881; Carlyle and Emerson, Atlantic Monthly, Apr., 1883; 
Some Letters and Conversations of Thomas Carlyle, Atlantic 
Monthly, June, 1894. 

Character and Criticism. — Though not the safest of guides in pol- 
itics or practical,, philosophy, his value as an inspirer and awakener 
cannot be over-estimated. It is a power which belongs only to the 
highest order of minds, for it is none but a divine fire that can so 
kindle and irradiate. The debt due him from those who listened 
to the teachings of his prime for revealing to them what sublime 
reserves of power even the humblest may find in manliness, sin- 
cerity, and self-reliance, can be paid with nothing short of reverential 
gratitude. As a purifier of the sources whence our intellectual 
inspiration is drawn, his influence has been second only to that of 
Wordsworth, if even to his. Indeed he has been in no fanciful sense 
the continuator of Wordsworth's moral teaching. — J. R. Lowell: 
Literary Essays. 

Find the following quotations in Carlyle's Heroes and 
Hero- Worship : 

1. We are all poets when we read a poem well. 

2. The meaning of song goes deep. Who is there that, in log- 
ical words, can express the effect music has on us ? A kind of inar- 
ticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the 
infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that ! 

3. The true university of these days is a collection of books. 

4. He who, in any way, shows us better than we knew before 
that a lily of the fields is beautiful, does he not show us an effluence 
of the fountain of all beauty ; as the handwriting, made visible there, 
of the great Maker of the universe ? He has sung for us, made us 
sing with him, a little verse of a sacred psalm. 



244 BRITISH AUTHORS 

5. I prophesy that the world will once more become sincere ; 
a believing world ; with many heroes in it, a heroic world ! It will 
then be a victorious world. 

Pithy sentences from Carlyle: 

1. Genius is an immense capacity for taking trouble. 

2. Always there is a black spot in our sunshine; it is the 
shadow of ourselves. 

3. Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve ; hast thou not two eyes of 
thy own ? 

4. Do the duty which lies nearest thee ! Thy second duty will 
already have become clearer. 

5. One Life; a little gem of Time between two Eternities; no 
second chance to us forevermore ! 

6. All true work is sacred ; in all true work, were it but true 
hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the 
earth,has its summit in heaven. 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Dickens, Forster, and Lowell 
say concerning Carlyle and his writings? Give a brief sketch of 
Carlyle's life. Quote the gem from George Eliot, beginning, "Oh, 
the anguish." Have you read Lowell's Essay on Carlyle? Have 
you read Heroes and Hero -Worship? Quote some fine passages 
from Carlyle's writings. 

. ^~^- . 

JOHN RUSKIN 

(1819 ) 

No one can read Ruskin, and mark his enthusiasm, his splendid power, 

his earnestness, his love of truth, his reverence for nature, and above all, his 

love of God, without feeling that he has a great mission to fulfil in the world. 

J. G. Holland : Lessons in Life, Undeveloped Resources. 

Ruskin's principal works are Modern Painters, Seven 
Lamps of Architecture, The Stones of Venice, Unto the Last, 
Time and Tide, Fors Clavigera, and the two series of lec- 
tures, Sesame and Lilies and Crow?i of Wild Olive. Sesame 
and Lilies contains the three lectures, Kings' Treasures y 



JOHN RUSKIN 245 

Queens' Gardens, and The Mystery of Life, and is a very 
helpful and inspiring book for young people. His King of 
the Golden River is a very popular book for children. Some 
of his best known poems are The Last Smile, The Old 
Water- Wheel, and A Walk in Chamouni. 

Biography. — John Ruskin was born in London, Eng., Feb. 8, 1819. 
His father, a wealthy wine merchant, was of Scotch descent. Although 
wealthy, his parents chose to live simply, so that their only child was 
not subjected to the enervating influences of luxury. His father 
took him to see the beautiful and celebrated places throughout Eng- 
land, thereby adding to his store of information and cultivating his 
taste for the beautiful. His mother was deeply religious, and had 
her boy read the Bible to her and learn by heart whole chapters of 
its noblest parts. To this he attributes his love for the beautiful in 
literature and his power as a writer. His writings abound in Scrip- 
tural allusions. He says: " I had been taught the perfect meaning of 
Peace, in thought, act, and word. Angry words, hurry, and disorder 
I never knew in the stillness of my childhood's home. Next to this 
quite priceless gift of Peace, I had received the perfect understand- 
ing of the natures of Obedience and Faith. . . . And my practice 
in Faith was soon complete ; nothing was ever promised me that 
was not given, nothing ever threatened me that was not inflicted, and 
nothing ever told me that was not true." In the evening the father 
was accustomed to read aloud to the mother, and in this way young 
Ruskin heard all the Shakespeare comedies again and again, all Scott 
and Don Quixote, and much of Spenser, Pope, Byron, Goldsmith, 
Addison, and Johnson. After this thorough home-training, Ruskin 
was sent to Oxford where he graduated, taking the Newdigate prize 
for English poetry. He was afterwards Prof, of Art at Oxford. He 
was very kind to his parents in their old age, and when his mother 
died at the age of ninety, and her body was buried beside that of his 



Have nothing to do with one who jests at what you or others think sacred. 
To have no reverence is to want the higher manhood. A light mocker is a mere 
fribble in soul. . . . Respect for religion is the only fence that keeps evil from 
breaking down all that is good in us. It is an edge and border to our lives, 
without which they fray out and unravel. To fling off its restraints goes far to 
"break down all others. To mock or flout shows a coarseness and want of sensi- 
bility, on which no sanctions, however sacred, have any hold. 

Dr. Geikik: Entering on Life. 



246 BRITISH AUTHORS 

father, Ruskin marked the grave with these words : " Here beside 
my father's body I have laid my mother's ; nor was dearer earth ever 
returned to earth, nor purer life recorded in Heaven." The uplifting 
and inspiring influence of Ruskin's life and writings can not be esti- 
mated. Since Tennyson's death he is England's greatest living lit- 
erary character. He is spending his peaceful old age at Brantwood, 
his country home, near Coniston, in the Lake Region made famous 
by Wordsworth, Coleridge, and others. 

References.— Ruskin's Preterita: Scenes of My Past Life; Gris- 
wold's Home Life of Great Authors ; Mather's Life and Teaching 
of fohn Ruskin; A Conversation With Ruskin, Christian Union, 
May 22, 1884; Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, Browning, by Anne 
Thackeray Ritchie; Bayne's Lessons from my Masters; Collingwood's 
Life and Work of fohn Ruskin. 

Character and Criticism. — There is not a flower, nor a cloud, nor a 
tree, nor a mountain, nor a star; not a bird that fans the air, nor a 
creature that walks the earth; not a glimpse of sea or sky or meadow 
greenery : not a work of worthy art in the domains of painting, 
sculpture, poetry, and architecture; not a thought of God as the 
Great Spirit presiding over and informing all things, that is not to 
him a source of the sweetest pleasure. 

J. G. Hoixand : Plain Talks, High Life and Low Life. 

Selections. 

Let us beware that our rest become not the rest of stones, which 
so long as they are torrent-tossed and thunder stricken maintain 
their majesty; but when the stream is silent and the storm passed, 
suffer the grass to cover them, and the lichen to feed upon them, and 
are ploughed down into dust. And though I believe we have salt 
enough of ardent and holy mind amongst us to keep us in some 
measure from this moral decay, yet the signs of it must be watched 
with anxiety in all matters however trivial, in all directions however 
distant. — Modern Painters. 

No nation can last, which has made a mob of itself, however 
generous at heart. It must discipline its passions, and direct them, 
or they will discipline it, one day, with scorpion whips. Above all, a 



Note. — R.uskin has published between thirty and forty works. Modern 
Painters is, perhaps, his greatest work. Preterita is a charming autobiography, 
containing many valuable hints on child-training. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 247 

nation cannot last as a money-making mob : it cannot with impunity, 
— it cannot with existence, — go on despising literature, despising 
science, despising art, despising nature, despising compassion, and 
concentrating its soul on Pence. 

Sesame and Lilies, Of Kings' Treasures. 

And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her. 
The stars only may be over her head; the glow-worm in the night 
cold grass may be the only fire at her foot : but home is yet wherever 
she is; and for a noble woman it stretches far round her, better than 
ceiled with cedar, or painted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light 
far, for those who else were homeless. 

Sesame and Lilies, Of Queens' Gardens. 

Literary x Gi,Eaning. — What does Holland say of Ruskin and 
his writings? Name Ruskin's principal works. Have you a copy of 
Sesame and Lilies? What popular book for children did Ruskin 
write? Tell about Ruskin's parents and his childhood. What about 
the Bible in Ruskin's home? What does Ruskin say about his 
parents and home ? What authors did he hear his father read ? How 
did he treat his parents in their old age ? What is Preterita f Quote 
fine passages from Ruskin's works. What does Dr. Geikie say about 
one who jests about "sacred" things? 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

(1822-1888) 

Arnold has little quality or lightness of touch. His hand is stiff, his voice 
rough by nature, yet both are refined by practice and thorough study of the best 
models. . . . He is the pensive, doubting Hamlet of modern verse. ... A 
childlike disciple of Wordsworth, he is not, like his master, a law and comfort to 
himself. . . . His essays are illuminated by his poetic imagination, and he 
thus becomes a better prose-writer than a mere didactician ever could be. 

E. C. Stedman. 

Matthew Arnold's principal works are several volumes 
of essays — Essays in Criticism, Culture and Anarchy, Liter- 
ature and Dogma, Irish Essays, Mixed Essays, and A Gar- 
land of Friendship. Among his best poems are Sohrab 
and Rustum, Balder Dead, Dover Beach, Faded Leaves, 



248 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Philomela, The Buried Life, A Summer Night, The Scholar 
Gipsy, and Thy r sis (an elegy on his friend Clough). 

Biography. — Matthew Arnold, poet, essayist, and critic, the 
eldest son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, was born at Laleham, Middlesex, 
Eng., Dec. 24, 1822. He was educated at Winchester, Rugby, and 
finally at Balliol. Took the Newdigate prize in 1844, and was elected 
a fellow of Oriel in 1845. Professor of Poetry at Oxford 1856-67. 
Visited America in 1883-4 and delivered addresses in the large cities. 
Of these Discourses in America, the lecture on Emerson, delivered 
in Boston, is the most noted. Matthew Arnold holds up lofty stand- 
ards of life as well as of literature. He took a lively interest in edu- 
cation, and did much for the schools of England. He popularized 
certain expressions such as " Sweetness and light," " Conduct is 
three-fourths of life," etc. He has been called " the apostle of cul- 
ture." Died at Liverpool, Eng, Apr. 15, 1888. 

References. — Stedman's Victorian Poets; Eminent Men, by E. 
P. Whipple ; Mary Fisher's Twe?ity-Five Letters on English Authors; 
Matthew Arnold, by Hamilton W. Mabie in The Christian Union, 
Oct. 28, 1883 ; Criticism of Matthew Arnold, by John Burroughs in 
The Century, Apr., 1884 ; Pall Mall Gazette, Apr. 19, 1888, Matthew 
Arnold Memorial Number. 

Character and Criticism. — Certainly he is an illustrious example 
of the power of training and the human will. Lacking the ease of 
the lyrist, the boon of a melodious voice, he has, by a tour de force, 
composed poems which show little deficiency of either gift, — has 
won reputation, and impressed himself upon his age, as the apostle 
of culture, spiritual freedom, and classical restraint. 

E. C. Stedman: Victorian Poets. 

Selections. 

Yea, I take myself to witness, 

That I have loved no darkness, 

Sophisticated no truth, 

Nursed no delusion, 

Allowed no fear ! — Empedocles on Etna. 

Hark! ah, the nightingale — 

The tawny - throated ! 

Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst! 

What triumph ! hark ! what pain ! — Philomela. 



WALTER SCOTT 249 

Yet the will is free ; 
Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful; 
The seeds of godlike power are in us still ; 
Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will ! 

Written in a copy of Emerson's Essays. 

Literary Gleaning. — What does Stedman say of Matthew 
Arnold? Name some of his best poems. Have you read his Essays 
in Criticism? Tell about Rugby. Which is one of the most noted 
of Arnold's Discourses in America? Have you read it? 

. ->~^ . 



WALTER SCOTT 

(1771-1832) 

No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth 
century of Time — Carlyle. 

Who is there that, looking back over a great portion of his life, does not 
find the genius of Scott administering to his pleasures, beguiling his cares, and 
soothing his lonely sorrows? — Irving. 

Scott, the delight of generous boy s.— Emerson. 

Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue 

Than sceptered king or laureled conqueror knows, 

Follow this wondrous potentate.— Wordsworth. 

The principal poetical works of Walter Scott are The 
Lady of the Lake, Marmion, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 
The Lord of the Isles, Rokeby, and The Vision of Don 
Roderick. Among his prose works are A Life of Napo- 
leon, Tales of a Grandfather , and the Waverly Novels. 
Some of the best of these novels are Waverly, Old Mor- 
tality, Ivan hoe, Kenilworth, The Talisman, Quentin Dur- 
ward, Ayine of Geier stein, Guy Mannering , Black Dwarf, 
Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian, and The Bride of Lam- 
mermoor. 

Biography. — Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, Aug. 15, 1771. 
He took genuiue pride in the fact that he came of "gentle folk." 
His father, for whom Walter was named, was a Writer to the Signet, 
his mother was Anne Rutherford, daughter of an eminent physician 



250 BRITISH AUTHORS 

of Edinburgh. Being somewhat delicate, Walter was sent to the 
country, and spent much of his childhood roaming over the fields,, 
climbing rugged heights, or lying on the banks of the murmuring 
Tweed reading old Border tales and legends. " By his genial and 
embracing sympathy, he, as it were, was able to absorb Scotland 
herself, the outward aspect of her valleys, glens, and lochs, her 
towns, her fishing villages and hamlets, her people's life, her his- 
tory, spirit, and tradition, and lift them, by the simple force of his 
imaginative and poetic art, into the unchanging region of litera- 
ture." He spent some time in the University of Edinburgh but did 
not take a degree. He married Charlotte Margaret Carpenter and 
their life together was very happy. After living a few years in 
Edinburgh, they settled at Abbottsford, an estate on the banks of 
the Tweed. Scott enlarged and beautified this delightful home and 
entertained noted people with royal hospitality. His last years were 
saddened by financial difficulties, but he worked bravely on almost 
to the time of his death, which occurred at Abbottsford, Sept. 21, 
1832. His body rests in Dryburgh Abbey. Scott has been called 
"The Wizard of the North" and "The Great Unknown." When 
dying he said to his son-in-law : " Lockhart, I may have but a 
minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man — be virtuous, be 
religious — be a good man. Nothing else will give you comfort 
when you come to lie here." Scott was greatly loved, as is shown 
by the following account of his funeral : " The court-yard and all 
the precincts of Abbottsford were crowded with uncovered specta- 
tors as the procession was arranged; and as it advanced through. 
Darnick and Melrose, and the adjacent villages, the whole popula- 
tion appeared at their doors in like manner, — almost all in black."' 

References. — Lockhart's Life of Scott ; Familiar Letters of Sir 
Walter Scott; Irving's Abbottsford; Carlyle's Essay on Scott ; The 
Waverly Dictionary, by May Rogers ; The Scott Centenary at Edin- 
burgh, by M. D. Conway, Harper's Mag., Feb., 1872 ; Howitt's 
Homes a?id Haunts of the British Poets ; Mary Fisher's Twenty- Five 
Letters on English Authors ; Mrs. Griswold's Home Life of Great 
Authors ; Dr. John Brown's Marjorie Fleming ; A Shelf of Old 
Books, by Mrs. James T. Fields ; English Classic Series. 

Character and Criticism. — But he has given to Scotland a citizen- 
ship of literature — I mean to the whole of Scotland: scenery, monu- 
ments, houses, cottages, characters of every age and condition, from 
the baron to the fisherman, from the advocate to the beggar, from. 



WALTER SCOTT 251 

the lady to the fishwife. When we mention merely his name they 
crowd forward ; who does not see them coming from every niche of 
memory? ... Walter Scott is never bitter; he loves men from 
the bottom of his heart, excuses or tolerates them ; does not chastise 
vices, but unmasks them, and that not rudely. . . . By this funda- 
mental honesty and this broad humanity, he was the Homer of mod- 
ern citizen life. Around and after him, the novel of manners, sepa- 
rated from the historical romance, has produced a whole literature, 
and preserved the character which he stamped upon it. 

H. A. Taine. 
Selections. 

Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
WJio never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land ! 

Lay of the Last Minstrel. 

Oh, many a shaft at random sent, 

Finds mark the archer little meant; 

And many a word, at random spoken, 

May soothe or wound a heart that's broken. 

Lord of the Lsles, 
Oh, what a tangled web we weave 
When first we practice to deceive ! — Marmion. 

Some feelings are to mortals given 

With less of earth in them than heaven : 

And if there be a human tear 

From passion's dross refined and clear, 

A tear so limpid and so meek, 

It would not stain an angel's cheek, 

'Tis that which pious fathers shed 

Upon a duteous daughter's head! 

The Lady of the Lake. 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Carlyle, Irving, Emerson,. 
Wordsworth, and Taine say of Walter Scott? Name Scott's best 
works. Have you read The Lady of the Lake, Lvanhoe, and Kenil- 
worth ? Give a sketch of Scott's life. Tell about the following char- 
acters in Scott's works : Caleb Balderstone, Fitz James, Dandie Din- 
mont, Malcolm Greame, Edie Ochiltree, Rhoderick Dhu, Rebecca, El- 
len, Rowena, Jeanie Deans, Amy Robsart, lvanhoe, Queen Elizabeth, 
Bailie Jarvie, Fergus Maclvor, Hector Mclntyre, Lucy Ashton. 



252 BRITISH AUTHORS 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

(1770-1850) 

The violet by its mossy stone, 

The primrose by the river's brim, 
And chance-sown daffodil, have found 

Immortal life through him .— Whittier. 

Of no other poet except Shakespeare have so many phrases become house- 
hold words as of Wordsworth. — Lowell. 

I do not know a man more to be venerated for uprightness of heart and 
loftiness of genius.— Walter Scott. 

Among Wordsworth's best poems are The Excursion, 
Ode on Intimations of Immortality, White Doe of Rylstone, 
My Heart Leaps Up, Tintern Abbey, Laodamia, The Grave 
of Bur?is, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways, She Was 
a Phantom of Delight, Three Years She Grew, Peter Bell, 
To a Child, and The Tables Turned. 

Biography. — William Wordsworth, second son of John Words- 
worth and his wife, Anne Cookson, was born at Cockermouth, in 
Cumberland, Eng., Apr. 7, 1770. By the death of his parents, most 
of his childhood was spent with his maternal grandparents at Pen- 
rith. Attended school at Hawkshead, entered Cambridge, taking his 
degree in 1791. He and his sister Dorothy, of whom he was very 
fond, lived together many years. Wordsworth made tours through 
Scotland, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. In the latter 
part of his life Wordsworth had Coleridge, Southey, and Charles 
Lamb as neighbors. Many noted Americans, including Emerson, Dr. 
Channing, and Fields, visited him at Rydal Mount. The famous Dr. 
Arnold of Rugby lived in the neighborhood several years. On the 
death of Southey (1843), Wordsworth became poet laureate. Words- 
worth, Coleridge, and Southey were called the "Lake Poets." "In 
the Grasmere vale Wordsworth lived for half a century, first in a 
little cottage at the northern corner of the lake, and then (1813) in a 
more commodious house at Rydal Mount at the southern end, on the 
road to Ambleside. In 1802 he married Mary Hutchinson, of Pen- 
rith, and this completed the circle of his felicity. Mary, he once 
said, was to his ear the most musical and most truly English in sound 
of all the names we have. The name was of harmonious omen. The 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 253 

two beautiful sonnets that he wrote on his wife's portrait long years 
after, when ' morning into noon had passed, noon into eve,' show 
how much her large heart and humble mind had done for the bless- 
edness of his home." For a delightful picture of Wordsworth at 
home, see Fields's Yesterdays With Authors. Wordsworth died at 
Rydal Mount, Apr. 23, 1850, and his body was laid to rest in the little 
churchyard of Grasmere. 

References. — Whittier's poem, Wordsworth ; Holmes's poem, 
After a Lecture on Wordsworth ; Lowell's Literary Essays (Vol. 
IV); Whipple's Essays and Reviews; Emerson's English Traits; 
Fields's Yesterdays With Authors ; Mrs. Griswold's Home Life of 
Great Authors; Life of William Wordsworth, by Christopher 
Wordsworth; De' Quincey's Literary Reminiscences ; Howitt's Homes 
and Haunts of British Poets ; The English Lakes and Their Genii> 
by M. D. Conway in Harper's Mag., Feb., 1881. 

Character and Criticism.— Yet with what splendors as of moun- 
tain-sunsets are we rewarded ! what golden rounds of verse do we 
not see stretching heavenward with angels ascending and descend- 
ing! what haunting harmonies hover around us deep and eternal 
like the undying barytone of the sea ! and if we are compelled to 
fare through sands and desert wildernesses, how often do we not hear 
airy shapes that syllable our names with a startling personal appeal 
to our highest consciousness and our noblest aspiration, such as we 
wait for in vain in any other poet ! ... Even where his genius 
is wrappped in clouds, the unconquerable lightning of imagination 
struggles through, flashing out unexpected vistas, and illuminating 
the humdrum pathway of our daily thought with a radiance of 
momentary consciousness that seems like a revelation. 

J. R. Lowki.Iv. 

Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary 
power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, 
the joy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties;, 
and because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after 
case, he shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it. 

Matthew Arnold. 

Before Wordsworth, the child, in literature, was almost wholly 
considered as one of a group, as a part of a family, and only those 
phases of childhood were treated which were obvious to the most 
careless observer. Wordsworth — and here is the notable fact — was 



254 BRITISH AUTHORS 

the first deliberately to conceive of childhood as a distinct, indi- 
vidual element of human life. — Scudder'S Childhood in Lit. and Art. 
Whatever the world may think of me or of my poetry is now of 
little consequence ; but one thing is a comfort of my old age, that 
none of my works written since the days of my early youth, contains 
a line which I should wish to blot out because it panders to the baser 
passions of our nature. This is a comfort to me ; I can do no mis- 
chief by my works when I am gone. — Wiujam Wordsworth. 

Memorize the following selections and read the poems 
in which they occnr : 

My Heart leaps up when I behold 

A rainbow in the sky : 
So was it when my life began ; 
So is it now I am a man ; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 

Or let me die ! — My Heart Leaps Up. 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

Intimations of Immortality. 
She lived unknown, and few could know 

When Lucy ceased to be ; 
But she is in her grave, and, oh, 

The difference to me ! — She Dwelt Among, etc. 
O Reader! had you in your mind 
Such stores as silent thought can bring, 
O gentle Reader! you would find 
A tale in everything. — Simon Lee. 
A perfect Woman, nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort, and command; 
And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
With something of angelic light. 

She was a Phantom of Delight. 
Literary Gleaning. — Quote what Whittier, Lowell, and Scott 
say of Wordsworth. Name Wordsworth's best poems. Give a brief 
sketch of his life. Have you read Wordsworth in Fields's Yesterdays 
with Authors and in DeQuince}''s Literary Reminiscences? What 
does Scudder say of Wordsworth and " childhood " ? What does Words- 
worth say of his own writings ? Have you read Intimations of Im- 
mortality, The Excursion, and Peter Bell? Read Whittier's poem, 
Wordsworth ? 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 255 

GEORGE GORDON BYRON 

(1788-1824) 

Byron's poetry is great — great, it makes him truly great; he has not so 
much greatness in himself.— Thomas Campbell. 

Never had any writer so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, 
misanthropy, and despair. — Macaulay. 

Byron's principal poems are Childe Harold, The Giaour, 
The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, The Prisoner of Chi Ho 71, 
Ma?ifred, Cain, /The Lament of Tasso, Lara, and Don f nan. 

Biography. — Byron was born in London, Jan. 22, 1788. His 
mother, Catherine Gordon, a Scotch heiress, was a silly and impul- 
sive woman. His father, Captain John Byron, known as " Mad 
Jack," was a miserable spendthrift, who squandered his wife's for- 
tune and then deserted her shortly after the birth of her son. When 
3'oung Byron was eleven, his granduncle, " the wicked lord," died, 
leaving him the title of Lord Byron and an estate which included 
Newstead Abbey, where Byron and his mother took up their resi- 
dence. Young Byron spent two years at Cambridge, where he lived 
a reckless life and was spoken of by his college servant as " a young 
gentleman of tumultous passions." The criticism of his first book, 
Hours of Idleness, called out his scathing reply, English Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers. After two years of Continental travel, he pub- 
lished Childe Harold in 1812. Seven editions were exhausted in four 
weeks. " I awoke one morning," says Byron, " and found myself fa- 
mous." His marriage to the wealthy Miss Milbanke, in 1815, proved 
unhappy, and they separated a year later. He could not endure the 
condemnation of the public which followed, but became a wanderer 
in other lands, and plunged into all sorts of sins and excesses. Hear- 
ing of the struggle of the Greeks for liberty, he threw himself into 
their cause, but was stricken with illness before he could take the 
field, and died at Missolonghi, Greece, Apr. 19, 1824, at the age of 
thirty-six. His body was taken to England, and after lying in state 
in London, was buried in the family vault in the village church of 
Hucknall, near Newstead. See Moore's Life of Byron ; Nichols's 
Byron ; Whipple's Essay on Byron in Essays and Reviews ; Carlyle's 
Essay on Byron; and Macaulay's Essay on Byron. Byron has 



256 BRITISH AUTHORS 

summed up his own life and character in the lament of the good 
abbot over the sins of Manfred : 

" This should have been a noble creature : he 
Hath all the energy which would have made 
A goodly frame of glorious elements, 
Had they been wisely mingled ; as it is, 
It is an awful chaos — light and darkness — 
And mind and dust — and passions and pure thoughts, 
Mixed, and contending, without end or order, 
All dormant or destructive." 

Selections. 

For Freedom's battle once begun, 
Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son, 
Though baffled oft, is ever won. — The Giaour. 

'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark 
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home ; 
'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark 
Our coming, and look brighter when we come. 

Don Juan. 
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes, 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar. 

Childe Harold. 
Florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme, 
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime. 

Childe Harold. 
The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree 
I planted, — they have torn me, — and I bleed: 
I should have known what fruit would spring 
from such a seed. — Childe Harold. 

Literary Gleaning.— What do Campbell and Macaulay say of 
Byron ? Name Byron's best poems. Tell about Byron's parents, his 
childhood, his schooldays. Have you read The Battle of Waterloo 
in Childe Harold? Can you quote his " apostrophe, to the ocean" 
from Childe Harold? 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 257 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devonshire, Oct. 20, 1772. 
His principal prose writings are Aids to Reflection, Biographia Lit- 
er aria, Lectures on Shakespeare, Table-Talk, and The Friend. His 
poetical writings are The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan y 
and many shorter poems. As a child Coleridge was, to use his own 
words, " a playless day dreamer." This day dreaming spirit seemed 
to retain possession of him and to dominate his whole life. Although 
gifted with imagination, insight, discrimination, and originality, his 
works but faintly shadow forth the exceeding richness of his mind. 
His friend Hazlett says : " To the man had been given in high meas- 
ure the seeds of noble endowment, but to unfold them had been for- 
bidden him." He and the poet Southey had married two sisters, and 
lived near each other in the Eake region. They, with other literary 
friends, planned to come to America and establish a Pantisocracy — an 
ideal community in which all should rule equally — on the banks of 
the Susquehanna. Owing to lack of money, the plan was not carried 
out. Being addicted to the use of opium, and indolent and imprac- 
tical, the support of Coleridge's family devolved upon his brother-in- 
law Southey. During the last nineteen years of his life he resided 
with the family of Dr. Gilman in London. Here friends and ad- 
mirers gathered to hear him talk. He seemed to have no difficulty 
in fully expressing his thoughts by word of mouth, but experienced 
great difficulty and confusion in committing them to paper. A short 
time before his death which occurred at the home of his benefactor, 
July 25, 1834, he wrote the following epitaph for himself: 
Stop, Christian passer-by ! Stop, child of God ! 
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod 
A poet lies, or that which once seemed he — 
Oh ! lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C. ! 
That he, who many a year, with toil of breath, 
Found death in life, may here find life in death! 
Mercy for praise — to be forgiven for fame, 
He asked and hoped through Christ — do thou the same. 
See Gilman' s Lije of Coleridge and De Ouincey's Literary Re- 
miniscences. 

He prayeth best who loveth best 

All things both great and small ; 
For the dear God who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all. — The Ancient Mariner.. 



258 BRITISH AUTHORS 

O'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule, 
And sun thee in the light of happy faces ; 
Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces, 
And in thine own heart let them first keep school. 

Love, Hope, and Patience in Education. 
God ! sing, ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice ! 
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! 
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! 

Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni. 
Robert Southey was born at Bristol, Aug. 12, 1774. His principal 
writings are The Doctor and Life of Nelson in prose, and Thalada, 
Curse of Kehama, and Roderick Madoc in poetry. His Cataract of 
Lodore is a well known short poem. He was educated at the Uni- 
versity of Oxford and began a literary life shortly after leaving it. 
He was very industrious, a voluminous writer. He wrote in all one 
hundred and nine volumes. He became poet laureate in 1813, and 
retained the office until his death, Mar. 21, 1843. See DeQuincey's 
Literary Reminiscences, Life of Southey, by C. T. Browne, and Dow- 
den's Southey in English Men ot Letters. 
How beautiful is night ! 
A dewy freshness fills the silent air; 
No mist obscures, nor cloud nor speck nor stain 
Breaks the serene of heaven ; 
In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine 
Rolls through the dark-blue depths. 
Beneath her steady ray 
The desert-circle spreads 
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. 
How beautiful is night! — Thalada. 
Charles Lamb, "the genial Charles" as his friend Coleridge called 
him, was born in London, Feb. 10, 1775. His principal writings are 
Specimens of Old English Dramatists, John Woodvil, a drama, Rosa- 
mond Gray, a tale, Essays of Elia, and Tales Founded on the Plays 
of Shakespeare. The tales were the joint work of himself and his 
sister Mary. This sister had watched over his early years with great 
solicitude ; and when she became a prey to hereditary insanity, and 
in one of her fits of madness stabbed her mother to death with a 
knife snatched from the dinner table, she became his especial care. 
He so arranged his life that nothing should interfere with this 
solemn duty, and so pledged himself to take care of her that she was 






CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 259 

released from the asylum to which she had been sent. She was not 
insane all the time, but had lucid intervals of months' duration inter- 
spersed with fits of insanity. During the sane periods their compan- 
ionship was delightful, and she repaid his loving devotion with ten- 
derness and affection. The story of their devotion to each other is 
most beautiful and pathetic. He himself had an attack of insanity 
when about twenty years old and was confined six weeks in an 
asylum. He was always haunted by the dread of a return of the dis- 
ease, but his fears were groundless. In spite of this dread, the dis- 
comfort of a limited income during the greater part of his life, and 
the strain of caring for his sister, he remained cheerful and free from 
bitterness, and was greatly beloved by his contemporaries. He died 
in London, Dec. 27, 1834. His body was laid to rest in the church- 
yard at Edmonton. His sister died May 20, 1847. She was hopelessly 
insane during her latter years and was confined in an asylum. See 
Talfourd's Final Memorials of Charles Lamb ; Letters, edited by 
Ainger; Recollections of Charles Lamb in De Quincey's Literary 
Reminiscences, and N. P. Willis's Pencillings by the Way. 

I love to lose myself in other men's minds. 

Books and Reading. 

I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occa- 
sions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for 
setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a 
friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, 
those spiritual repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace before 
Shakespeare — a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading 
the Fairy Queen ?— Grace before Meat. 

Thomas De Quincey was born near Manchester, Aug. 15, 1785. 
His principal writings are Confessions of an Opium Eater, Literary 
Reminiscences, The Eighteenth Century in Literature and Scholar- 
ship, The Logic of Political Economy, and Autobiographic Sketches. 
When about sixteen he went to London, and having no money or 
employment he slept in a deserted house and endured the keenest 
pangs of hunger. While suffering from the toothache he took 
opium to relieve the pain, and afterwards continued to use it. He 
was discovered in London by his friends and sent to college at 
Oxford. He was a friend of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, 
and resided for twenty-seven years at Grasmere in the cottage where 
Wordsworth had spent seven happy years before his removal to 
Rydal Mount. He afterwards removed to Scotland and lived at 
Lasswade, near Edinburgh. He died in Edinburgh, Dec. 8, 1859. 



260 BRITISH AUTHORS 

John Wilson, better known as Professor Wilson from his occu- 
pying the chair of philosophy in the University of "Edinburgh for so 
long a time, was born in the town of Paisley in Scotland, May 18 > 
1785. His principal writings are The Recreations of Christopher 
North in prose, and in poetry The City of the Plague and The Isle 
of Palms. He entered Glasgow University at thirteen, but after- 
wards was transferred to Magdalen College, Oxford. After leaving 
Oxford he purchased a beautiful estate named Elleray on the banks 
of Lake Windermere. It was here that De Quincey came to spend 
the day with him and was so delighted with the place that he length- 
ened his visit to nine months. He was a warm friend of Words- 
worth. After meeting with some reverses, he went to Edinburgh 
University. He died in Edinburgh, April 3, 1854. 

Thomas Hood was born in London in 1798. His best poems are 
The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, The Dream of Eugene Aram y 
The Bridge of Sighs, The Song of the Shirt, Ruth, I Remember, I 
Remember, Faithless Nelly Gray, and Ode to an Infant Son. Many 
of Hood's poems are of a humorous nature. Whipple says of him : 
"Hood was no humorist in the sense in which the word is sometimes 
employed. He was no mere provoker of barren laughter, but a man 
whose mirth had its roots deep in sentiment and humanity. He saw 
the serious side of life as clearly as the ludicrous. He knew what 
thin partitions separate in this world tears from laughter ; that the 
deepest feeling often expresses itself in the quaint oddities of carica- 
ture ; that wisdom sometimes condescends to pun, and grief to 
wreathe its face in smiles." He was — what is impossible for many 
great writers to be — a successful punster. Owing to the failure 
of a business house, which involved him in its losses, he was obliged 
to use the utmost economy in order to pay his debts, as he was far 
too honorable to take refuge in bankruptcy. Lamb, Hazlitt, De 
Ouincey and other literary men of the day were his friends. He 
died in London in 1845. See Whipple's Essays and Reviews and 
Lowell's poem, To the Memory of Hood. 

Thomas Campbell was born in Glasgow, Scotland, July 27, 1777. 
His principal writings are Specimens of the British Poets, Life of 
Mrs. Siddons, and Life of Petrarch, in prose, and in poetry Pleas- 
ures of Hope, Gertrude of Wyoming, LochiePs Warning, Hohen- 
linden, Exile of Erin, Ye Mariners of England, The Battle of 
the Baltic, The Last Man, and Lord Ullin's Daughter. 

Campbell was the son of a Glasgow merchant who traced his 
origin from the first Norman lord of Lochawe. Although the poet's 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 261 

father was unsuccessful in business, he was able to give his son a 
college education. Campbell began writing poetry at an early age. 
His first poem of note, Pleasures of Hope, was written at twenty- 
one. Shortly after he visited the continent, and witnessed the battle 
which gave Ratisbon to the French. In another visit he saw Paris in 
company with John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. He made a voyage to 
Algiers, of which he published an account. His life was spent en- 
tirely in literary and educational work. He went to reside at Bou- 
logne in 1843, but his health was already much impaired and he 
died June 15, 1844. His funeral was attended by some of the greatest 
men of the day, and his body was interred in Westminister Abbey. 
See Life of Campbell by Dr. Beattie and Campbell in Whipple's Es- 
says and Reviews. 

Eternal Hope ! when yonder spheres sublime 
Peal'd their first notes to sound the march of Time, 
Thy joyous youth began, — but not to fade. 
When all the sister planets have decay'd; 
When wrapped in fire the realms of ether glow, 
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below; 
Thou, uudismay'd, shalt o'er the ruins smile, 
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile. 

Pleasures of Hope. 
Familiar lines: 

1. 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view. 

2. 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before. 

3. Like angel-visits, few and far between. 

John Keats was born in London, Oct. 29, 1795. His best poems 
are Endymion, Hyperion, The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode to a Night- 
ingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Lamia, and Lsabella. Keats was 
early apprenticed to a surgeon, but most of his time was spent in 
cultivating his genius for poetry, encouraged by Leigh Hunt, one of 
his earliest friends. The contemptuous criticism heaped upon En- 
dymion, published in 1818, brought such agony of mind to the poet 
that, although he died of consumption, his death was probably hast- 
ened by his mental sufferings. His later poems show that he prof- 
ited by these severe criticisms ; but the praises now lavished upon 
him came too late to soothe his grief. He went to Italy, but his 
health did not improve. He died in Rome, Feb. 23, 1821, and was 
laid to rest there in the Protestant cemetery. The inscription on his 
gravestone, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water," was die- 



262 BRITISH AUTHORS 

tated by him a few days before his death. Lowell says of him : 
"Keats had an instinct for fine words, which are in themselves pic- 
tures and ideas, and had more of the power of poetic expression than 
any modern English poet." See Life of Keats by Lord Houghton r 
Holmes's poem, After a Lecture on Keats, Longfellow's poem, Keats, 
DeQuincey's Biographical and Historical Essays, Keats in Lowell's 
Literary Essays and in Whipple's Essays and Reviews. 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever : 
Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
Pass into nothingness. — Endymion. 

As when, upon a tranced summer-night, 
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, 
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, 
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir, 
Save from one gradual solitary gust 
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, 
As if the ebbing air had but one wave : 
So came these words and went. — Hyperion. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born near Horsham, in Sussex, Aug. 4,, 
1792. His best poems are Queen Mad, Prometheus Unbound, Alastor, 
The Cenci, Ode to a Skylark, Revolt of Lslam, Hellas, The Witch of 
Atlas, Epipsychidion, and Adonais, an elegy upon the poet Keats. 
His prose, published in two volumes by his widow, consists of Essays, 
Letters from Abroad, Translations and Eragments. Shelley came 
of a titled family which traced its descent back to William the Con- 
queror. He was of a very sensitive nature and suffered greatly from 
rough, harsh treatment at school. While at Oxford, when but seven- 
teen years of age, he, in conjunction with a fellow student, Mr. Hogg,, 
composed a short treatise on The Necessity of Atheism, for which 
they were both expelled from college. He made some very grave 
mistakes in marrying, which caused himself and others great grief 
and shame. While living in Cumberland after his first marriage, he 
made the acquaintance of Wordsworth, Southey, DeQuincy, and Pro- 
fessor Wilson. While visiting Lake Geneva he met Lord Byron, and, 
later, in Italy, renewed his acquaintance with him. Byron thought 
Shellev's philosophy " too spiritual and romantic." He dedicated his 
tragedy, The Cenci, to his friend Leigh Hunt. He left England 
permanently in 1818 and went to Italy to live. He spent much time 
on the water ; arid July 8, 1822, while returning from Leghorn, where 
he had gone to welcome Leigh Hunt to Italy, the boat in which he 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 263 

sailed, accompanied by a friend and one seaman, capsized and all 
were drowned in the Bay of Spezzia. When his body was washed 
ashore, a volume of Keats's poetry was found in his pocket. His re- 
mains were burned and his ashes taken to Rome and placed in the 
Protestant cemetery, near the grave of his friend Keats. Memory 
recalls the following beautiful lines from Dr. Holmes's poem on 
Shelley : 

" Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, 

Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, 
Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, 
Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art." 
Whipple says of him : " He desired society to be pure, free, un- 
selfish, devoted to the realization of goodness and beauty ; and he be- 
lieved it capable of that exaltation. . . . No man ever lived with a 
deeper and more inextinguishable thirst to promote human liberty 
and happiness." See Symond's Shelley in English Men of Letters, 
Swinburne's Essays and Studies, De Quincey's Biographical and His- 
torical Essays, Whipple's Essays and Reviews, Holmes's poem, After 
a Lecture on Shelley. 

We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not: 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught: 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought 

To a Skylark. 
How wonderful is death, 

Death and his brother sleep ! 

One, pale as yonder waning moon, 

With lips of lurid blue ; 

The other, rosy as the morn 

When, throned on ocean's wave, 

It blushes o'er the world : 

Yet both so passing wonderful! — Queen Mad. 

Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, Ireland, May 28, 1779. His 

best poems are his Irish Melodies, which include The Last Rose 



The silver key of the fountain of tears, 

Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild, 

Softest grave of a thousand fears, 

Where their mother's care like a weary child 

Is laid asleep in a bed of flowers.— Shelley, on Music. 



264 BRITISH AUTHORS 

of Summer, Those Evening Bells, The Harp That Once Through 
Tara's Halls, etc., Lalla Rookh, which comprises four poems, The 
Veiled Prophet, The Fire- Worshippers, Paradise and the Peri, and 
The Light of the Harem, The Fudge Family in Paris, and his 
Sacred Songs, among which occur The Bird Let Loose in Eastern 
Skies, This World is all a Fleeting Show, and Sound the Loud Tim- 
brel. His chief prose works are biographies of Sheridan, Byron, 
and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and The Epicurean. Moore's parents 
were Roman Catholics. Their circumstances were such that he was 
sent to Trinity College, Dublin. After leaving college he studied 
law in London and published a translation of Anacreon. He was 
appointed to an official position at Bermuda, where he remained 
fourteen months. He made a tour of the continent, visiting Byron 
at Venice, and resided for a time in Paris. Moore was a great 
favorite in society ; gay, versatile, witty, a good singer, he was much 
petted and sought after. Being so much in society had a bad effect 
upon him; he seemed never to have a serious thought, but to be 
always in a light, trifling mood. So much of his poetry shows such 
a lack of serious thought that its popularity cannot be lasting. He 
has shown more real feeling in the Irish Melodies than in any of his 
•other poems ; and they will be read when the others are forgotten. 
His home was at Wiltshire, but he spent much time in London. He 
died Feb. 26, 1852. See Life of Moore by R. H. Montgomery, 
Holmes's poem, Moore, and Moore in Whipple's Essays and Reviews. 

Oh ! ever thus, from childhood's hour, 
I've seen my fondest hopes decay; 

I never loved a tree or flower, 

But 'twas the first to fade away. — Lalla Rookh. 

You may break, you may shatter, the vase, if you will, 
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. 

Farewell. 
Earth hath no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal. 

Come, ye Disconsolate. 

Note. — For other writers of the "Tennyson-Browning" and 
" Scott- Wordsworth " groups, see "Additional Nineteenth Century 
British Authors" pages 330-37. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 265 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

(1728-1774) 

The pages of friendly old Goldsmith come to us like a golden autumn 
•day, when every object that meets the eye bears all the impress of the completed 
year and the beauties of an autumnal forest. — J. A. Garfield. 

Who of the millions he has amused does not love him? To be the most 
beloved of English writers— what a title that is for a man ! — W. M. Thackeray. 

He was a friend to virtue, and in his most playful pages never forgets 
what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and purity of feeling distinguish 
whatever he wrote, and bear a correspondence to a generosity of disposition 
which knew no bounds but his last guinea. — Sir Walter Scott. 

Goldsmith's principal works are the two poems, The 
Traveller and The Deserted Village, two comedies, The 
Good-Natured Man and She Stoops to Co?iquer, and his fa- 
mous novel, The . Vicar of Wakefield. He also compiled 
some historical works, History of England, History of 
Greece, History of Rome, and History of Animated Nature. 

Biography. — Oliver Goldsmith was born at Elphin, in the county 
of Roscommon, Ireland, Nov. 29, 1728. His amiable and worthy 
father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, from whom the poet inherited 
his best traits of character, has been immortalized by his illustrious 
son in the " Dr. Primrose " of The Vicar of Wakefield and the ''Vil- 
lage Preacher" of The Deserted Village. 

" A man he was to all the country dear, 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year." 

Young Goldsmith spent some time in Trinity College, Dublin ; 
and though idle and irregular as a student he took the degree of A. 
B. in 1749. After trying teaching, studying law, taking a course in 
medicine, and failing in all, he wandered on foot through France, 
Switzerland, and Italy with no means of support but his flute. He 
finally settled down in London, and by the aid of his friends, Dr. 
Samuel Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and others, managed to live, but 
was always in debt. " He was simple, credulous, impulsive as a 
child." At the height of his fame he died in London, Apr. 4, 1774. 
Because of his poverty, instead of a public funeral and burial in 
Westminster Abbey, on the evening of Apr. 9, a few friends laid his 



266 BRITISH AUTHORS 

body to rest in the burial ground of Temple Church, London. A 
bust of Goldsmith was afterwards placed in the Poets' Corner of 
Westminster Abbey by his friends. 

References. — Irving's Life of Goldsmith ; Scott's Life of Gold- 
smith ; Macaulay's Essay on Goldsmith ; The Deserted Village, The 
Traveller, and The Vicar of Wakefield in Eng. Classic Series. 

Character and Criticism. — The unforced humor, blending so hap- 
pily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed, at 
times, with a pleasing melancholy ; even the very nature of his mel- 
low and flowing and softly-tinted style, all seem to bespeak his moral 
as well as his intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the 
same time that we admire the author. — Irving. 

Think of him, reckless, thoughtless, vain, if you like — but 
merciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pity. His humor delight- 
ing us still ; his song fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed 
with it ; his words in all our mouths ; his very weaknesses beloved 
and familiar ; his benevolent spirit seems still to smile on us ; to do 
gentle kindnesses; to succor with sweet charity; to soothe, caress, 
and forgive ; to plead with the fortunate for the unhappy and the 
poor. — W. M. Thackeray. 

Selections. 

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay: 
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade — 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made : 
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied. 

The Deserted Village. 
Still to ourselves in every place consigned, 
Our own felicity we make or find: 
With secret course which no loud storms annoy, 
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. 

The Traveller. 
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 

The Deserted Village. 
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. 

The Deserted Village. 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 267 

Vain, very vain, my wea^ search to find 
That bliss which only centers in the mind: 
Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose, 
To seek a good each government bestows? 

The Traveller* 
The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I 
had gained a new friend : when I read over a book I have perused 
before, it resembles the meeting with an old one. 

The Citizen of the World. 
Literary Gleaning.— What do Thackeray and Scott say of 
Goldsmith and his writings ? Have you read The Deserted Village \ 
The Traveller, and The Vicar of Wakefield? Give a sketch of Gold- 
smith's life. What noted persons were his friends ? Tell about the 
"village preacher" and the "village master," and quote some of the 
best lines about them. Tell about Dr. Primrose and Moses in the 
Vicar of Wakefield. 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 

(1709-1784) 

Who many a noble gift from heaven possess'd 
And faith at last, alone worth all the rest. 
O man, immortal by a double prize, 
By fame on earth, — by glory in the skies! 

Cowper : Epitaph on Johnson. 

Johnson, to be sure, has a rough manner; but no man alive has a better 
heart. He has nothing of the bear but the skin. — Goldsmith. 

Johnson's principal works are his Dictionary of the 
English La?iguage, Lives of the Poets, The Vanity of Hu- 
man Wishes, Irene, the Rambler, the Idler, and Rasselas. 

Biography — Samuel Johnson was born at Litchfield, England, 
Sept. 18, 1709. His father was a humble bookseller. Lake Charles 
Lamb, Johnson " browsed " among books in his childhood. He en- 
tered Pembroke College, Oxford, at the age of nineteen, but by his 
father's misfortunes in business he was compelled to leave the Uni- 
versity without a degree. He set up a private academy, but had only 
three pupils, one of whom was David Garrick. He soon gave up the 
school and went to London, taking Garrick with him. He began 
writing for the Gentleman 's Magazine. In 1738 appeared his poem, 



268 BRITISH AUTHORS 

London, which was immediately popular, being highly praised by 
Pope. His Dictionary cost him several years of hard labor. Rasselas 
was written to pay some debts and to defray the funeral expenses of 
his mother. Johnson was the central figure in the Literary Club 
which included Burke, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Gibbon, Garrick, and 
others. Johnson's account of his celebrated journey to the Hebrides 
accompanied by Boswell, is very interesting, but his most valuable 
work is Lives of the Poets. His peaceful death occurred Dec. 13, 
1784, and his body was laid to rest in Westminister Abbey, near the 
foot of Shakespeare's monument. See Boswell's Life of Johnson ; 
Johnson, by Leslie Stephens in Eng. Men of Letters ; Macaulay's 
essay, Samuel Johnson, 

Character and Criticism. — If it be asked, who first in England, at 
this period, breasted the waves and stemmed the tide of infidelity, — 
who, enlisting wit and eloquence, together with argument and learn- 
ing on the side of revealed religion, first turned the literary current 
in its favor, and mainly prepared the reaction which succeeded — 
that praise seems most justly to belong to Dr. Samuel Johnson. 

Lord Mahon : History of England. 

Selections. 

Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity 
of the human mind. To be driven by external motives from the path 
which our own heart approves, to give way to anything but convic- 
tion, to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice or overpower 
our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious 
slavery, and to resign the right of directing our own lives. 

On Revenge. 

Far from me and my friends be such frigid philosophy as may 
conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has 
been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. The man is little to 
be envied whose patriotism would not gain force on the plain of 
Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins 
of Iona. — Journey to the Western Isles. 

If the flights of Drydeu, therefore, are higher, Pope continues 
longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of 
Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often sur- 
passes expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read 
with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. 

Lives of the Poets. 



THOMAS GRAY 269 

Of all the griefs that harrass the distress'd, 
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest, 
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, 
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart. 

London. 
Literary Gleaning. — What does Goldsmith say of his friend^ 

Dr. Johnson? What does Lord Mahon say of Johnson's influence? 

Give a sketch of the life of Dr. Johnson. Name his principal 

writings. Have you read Boswell's Life of Johnson and Macaulay's 

Essay on Samuel Johnson ? 



THOMAS GRAY 

(1716-1771) 

Gray, more than any of our poets, has shown what a depth of sentiment,, 
how much pleasurable emotion, mere words are capable of stirring through the 
magic of association, and of artful arrangement in conjunction with agreeable 
and familiar images. — Lowell. 

Gray's principal poems are Elegy Written in a Country 
Churchyard, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 
Ode to Adversity, The Progress of Poesy, and The Bard. 

Biography. — Thomas Gray was born at Cornhill, London, Dec. 
26, 1716. His father, Philip Gray, was a man of so harsh and violent 
a disposition that his wife was forced to separate from him ; and it 
was to the exertions of this excellent woman, as partner with her 
sister in the millinery business, that the poet owed the advantages 
of a learned education, first at Eton, and afterwards at Cambridge. 
After taking a Continental tour with his school friend, Horace Wal- 
pole, Gray settled down at Cambridge, and here amid its excellent 
libraries and cultured society spent most of his life. He made tours 
to the beautiful lake-region of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and 
visited Scotland and Wales to enjoy the natural scenery. His letters 
describing these excursions are very beautiful. Of his letters Cowper 
says : "I once thought Swift's letters the best that could be written ; 
but I like Gray's better. His humor, or his wit, or whatever it is to 
be called, is never ill-natured or offensive, and yet, I think, equally 
poignant with the Dean's." Gray is said to have spent twelve years 



270 BRITISH AUTHORS 

in writing his immortal Elegy. He died July 30, 1771, and according 
to his wishes his body was laid to rest beside that of his mother in 
the churchyard at Stoke Pogeis, near Windsor. Stoke Pogeis church- 
yard is supposed to be the scene of the Elegy. See Gray by E. W. 
Gosse in Eng. Men of Letters Series, and Gray in Lowell's Latest 
Literary Essays. 

Character and Criticism. — Gray's great claim to the rank he holds 
is derived from his almost unrivalled skill as an artist, in words and 
sounds; as an artist, too, who knew how to compose his thoughts and 
images with a thorough knowledge of perspective. This explains 
why he is so easy to remember; why, though he wrote so little, so 
much of what he wrote is familiar on men's tongues. . . . Above 
all it is as a teacher of the art of writing that he is to be valued. If 
there be any well of English undefiled, it is to be found in him and 
his master, Dryden. They are still standards of what may be called 
classical English, neither archaic nor modern, and as far removed 
from pedantry as from vulgarity. — J. R. LowEU,. 

Selections. 

Ah, happy hills ! ah, pleasing shade ! 

Ah, fields beloved in vain ! 
Where once my careless childhood strayed, 

A stranger yet to pain ! 
I feel the gales that from ye blow 
A momentary bliss bestow 

As waving fresh their gladsome wing, 
My weary soul they seem to soothe, 
And, redolent of joy and youth, 

To breathe a second spring. — Ode to Eton College. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 

Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, 
Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes, 
Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart. 

The Bard. 



ROBERT BURNS 271 

Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er, 

Scatters from her pictured urn 

Thoughts that breathe and words that burn. 

The Progress of Poesy. 

Literary Gleaning. — Quote what -Lowell says of Gray and 
his poetry. Tell about the Elegy, and quote some of the finest 
stanzas. Give a brief sketch of Gray's life. What does Cowper say 
of Gray's letters ? IJave you read the Ode on a Distant Prospect of 
Eton College and Lowell's Essay on Gray? 



ROBERT BURNS 

(1759-1796) 

But who his human heart has laid 

To Nature's bosom nearer? 
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 

To love a tribute dearer ? — Whittier. 

I fling my pebble on the cairn 

Of him, though dead, undying ; 
Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn 

Beneath her daisies lying. — Holmes. 

Burns is by far the greatest poet that ever sprung from the bosom of the 
people and lived and died in an humble condition. — Professor Wilson. 

Burns's principal poems are The Cotter's Saturday 
Night, Tarn O'Shanter, The Twa Dogs, The Brigs of Ayr, 
Highland Mary, To Mary i?i Heaven, To a Mouse, To a 
Mountain Daisy, The Jolly Beggars, Man Was Made to 
Mourn, Address to the Deil, and the beautiful songs, Mary 
Morison, Scots, wha hae wV Wallace bled, O Wert Thou in 
the Cauld Blast, Ye Banks and Braes o 1 Bonnie Doon, John 
Anderson My Jo, Afton Water, Honest Poverty, Comin' 
Through the Rye, O, My Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose, and 
O Whistle, and I'll Come to You. 

Biography. — Robert Burns was born in Scotland about two miles 
south of Ayr, Jan. 25, 1759. The "'bonnie Doon " ripples behind the 



272 BRITISH AUTHORS 

little thatched cottage where he was born, and not far away stands 
"Alloway's auld haunted kirk." William Burns, the father of the 
poet, was a humble farmer, intelligent and of sterling character, ten- 
der and affectionate in his family, who did what he could to educate 
his children. The mother, whose maiden name was Agnes Brown, 
was handsome and sagacious, of ready sympathy and deep tenderness. 
The Burns family loved books and besides "the big Ha' -Bible," they 
had the Spectator, Pope's works, Allan Ramsay's poems, a collection 
of English Songs, and a few other books. The embryo poet, who 
had "to work like a galley-slave," read these books at odd moments 
of rest, and while eating his frugal meals " with a spoon in one hand 
and a book in the other." Two copies of Mackenzie's Man of Feel- 
ing were worn out in this way. Later in his life he read Thomson, 
Shenstone, Sterne, and other standard authors. In a letter to Dr. 
Moore he says : " The earliest composition that I recollect taking 
any pleasure in was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's 
beginning, "How are thy servants blest, O Lord!" I particularly 
remember one half-stanza, which was music to my boyish ear : 

" For though on dreadful whirls we hung 
High on the broken wave." 

His childhood home is tenderly depicted in the Cotter's Satur- 
day Night. Who can forget the picture of the pious father : 

" Then kneeling down, to Heav'n's eternal King, 
The saint, the father, and the husband prays ! " 

Burns has been called " the Shakespeare of Scotland, " " Scotia's 
Bard", "the Plowman Bard", "the Ayrshire Plowman", etc. The 
body of his idolized " Highland Mary" (Mary Campbell) rests in the 
little kirkyard at Greenock. The friends of the poet have erected an 
unpretentious monument over her grave. Burns died at Dumfries, 
Scotland, July 21, 1796. "His ashes lie beneath a splendid mauso- 
leum at Dumfries, and beside them sleeps the world-weary Jean in 
her eternal quiet. Overlooking the ' banks and braes of bonnie Doon ' 
stands a magnificent monument, in the midst of a garden of beauty. 
Another graces Calton Hill at Edinburgh. . . . Pilgrims from 
every land visit his humble birthplace. Thousands of people walk 
yearly through the fields his peasant songs have made immortal. 
They sit beneath the birchen boughs on the banks of ' bonnie Doon " 
and dream in the weird enchantment of 'Alloway's auld haunted 
kirk.'" 



ROBERT BURNS 273 

For now he haunts his native land 
As an immortal youth; his hand 

Guides every plough ; 
He sits beside each ingle-nook, 
His voice is in each rushing brook, 

Each rustling bough. — Longfei^ow. 

References. — Poems on Burns by Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, 
and Wordsworth ; Chambers's Life of Burns : Shairp's Life of Burns ; 
Mrs. Griswold's Home Life of Great Authors ; Holland's The Canon- 
ization of the Vicious in Gold-Foil ; Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 

Character and Criticism. — What poems he might have written — 
he who did immortal work with all his drawbacks — had he kept his 
brain clear and his life sweet even for the short span of life allotted 
to him ! How high might he have soared in the years which he 
might have hoped from life, had he but moved at a slower pace, in 
those reckless years, the record of which is so painful to the great 
world of admiring and pitying friends, who cherish his memory so 
tenderly. — Mrs. H. T. Griswoi^d. 

His whole soul, however, was full of the finest harmony. So 
quick and genial were his sympathies, that he was easily stirred into 
lyrical melody by whatever was good and beautiful in nature. Not 
a bird sang in a bush, nor a burn glanced in the sun, but it was 
eloquence and music to his ear. . . . The arch humor, gaiety, 
simplicity, and genuine feeling of his original songs, will be felt 
as long as ' rivers roll and woods are green.' They breathe the 
natural character and spirit of the country, and must be coeval with 
it in existence. Wherever the words are chanted, a picture is pre- 
sented to the mind; and whether the tone be plaintive and sad, or 
joyous and exciting, one overpowering feeling takes possession of 
the imagination. The susceptibility of the poet inspired him with 
real emotions and passion, and his genius reproduced them with the 
glowing warmth and truth of nature. — Chambers's Cyc. of Eng. Lit. 

Selections. 

Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn. 

Man Was Made to Mourn. 

The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 

The man's the gowd for a' that. — Honest Poverty. 



274 BRITISH AUTHORS 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; 
Or, like the snowfall in the river, 

A moment white — then melts forever. 

Tarn O 'Shanter. 
But deep this truth impressed my mind, 

Through all his works abroad, 
The heart benevolent and kind 

The most resembles God.*" 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 

That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad; 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
"An honest man's the noblest work of God." 

The Cotter's Saturday Night, 
Literary GeEaning. — Quote what Whittier, Holmes, and 
Professor Wilson say of Robert Burns. Tell about Burns's parents, 
childhood, and the books he read. Tell about " bonnie Doon." 
What does Burns say, in his letter to Dr. Moore, about Addison's 
Vision of Mirza, etc.? What has Burns been called ? What does 
Mrs. Griswold say of Burns ? Have you read The Cotter's Saturday 
Night? Read Whittier's, Longfellow's, and Holmes's poem, Robert 
Burns. 

WILLIAM COWPBR 

(1731-1800) 

The most popular poet of his generation and the best of English letter- 
writers.— Southey. 

Cowper's principal poems are The Task, John Gilpin, 
and. On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture. He also trans- 
lated the Iliad and Odyssey. 

Biography. — William Cowper was born at Great Birkhamstead, 
in the county of Hertford, England, November 15, 1731. " He 
was a delicate, timid child, of a tremulous sensibility, passion- 
ately tender," says Taine. His mother, whom he loved most 
tenderly, died when he was six years old. She is immortalized 



A stanza of an early poem. 



WILLIAM COWPER 275 

in his finest poem, On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture, be- 
ginning, " Oh that those lips had language ! " One can easily 
imagine how this gentle boy was tortured by the tyranny and 
brutality of an English boys' school of that time. He spent seven 
years studying the classics at Westminster School with Warren 
Hastings as a schoolmate. Cowper says : " From the age of twenty 
to thirty-three I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of 
the law ; from thirty-three to sixty I have spent my time in the coun- 
try, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and 
where, when I had not either a magazine or a review, I was sometimes 
a carpenter, at others, a bird-cage maker, or a gardener, or a drawer 
of landscapes. At fifty years of age I commenced an author. It is a 
whim that has served me longest and best, and will probably be my 
last." Having fits of melancholy and partial insanity, Cowper found 
a restful place at his brother's home in the town of Huntingdon, near 
Cambridge. Here was formed the friendship with the Rev. Morley 
Unwin and his wife, and Cowper was adopted as a member of their 
family, where he led a quiet life with books and pleasant companions, 
and for diversion tended flowers and took great delight in some pet 
rabbits. He went with the Unwins to Olney where he formed the 
friendship of the Rev. John Newton for whom he wrote hymns which 
have since become famous. A friend of the Unwin's, Lady Austen, 
told him the story of John Gilpin, and at her suggestion also he wrote 
The Task, of which Southey says : " The best didactic poems, when 
•compared with ' The Task,' are like formal gardens compared with 
woodland scenery." Even after Mr. Unwin's death Cowper remained 
in Mrs. Unwin's home until her death. Their friendship is one of the 
most beautiful in all history. His poem, To Mary, is addressed to 
Mrs. Unwin, and the names Cowper and Mary Unwin will always be 
spoken together. Because of the excellence of his letters, Cowper 
has been called " The Great English letter-writer." He died Apr. 25, 
1800. See Cowper, by Goldwin Smith in Eng. Men of Letters and 
Sainte Beuve's Monday Chats. 

Character and Criticism. — Poor charming soul, perishing like a 



Honesty and truth are never so pure and reliable as when they have theil 
eyes on the highest. Manliness never appears to so much advantage as when 
bravely religious. It knows no compromises, no abatements ; custom and ex- 
pediency are graven images to which it burns no incense. Temperance, self- 
control, kindness, industry, steadiness, and solidity, which are the great condi- 
tions of success, are natural to it. — Dr. Geikie : Entering on Life. 



276 BRITISH AUTHORS 

frail flower transplanted from a warm land to the snow: the world's 
temperature was too rough for it ; and the moral law, which should 
have supported it, tore it with its thorns. — H. A. Taine. 

We have greater and loftier poets than Cowper, but none so 
entirely incorporated, as it were, with our daily existence — none so 
completely a friend — our companion in woodland wanderings, and 
in moments of serious thought — ever gentle and affectionate, even 
in his transient fits of ascetic gloom — a pure mirror of affections, 
regrets, feelings, and desires which we have all felt or would wish to 
cherish. Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton are spirits of ethereal 
kind ; Cowper is a steady and valuable friend, whose society we may 
sometimes neglect for that of more splendid and attractive asso- 
ciates, but whose unwavering principle and purity of character, 
joined to rich intellectual powers, overflow upon us in secret and 
bind us to him forever. — Chambers' s Cyc. of Eng. Lit. 

Selections. 

'Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreat 

To peep at such a world ; to see the stir 

Of the Great Babel, and not feel the crowd. — The Task. 

I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend, 
For when at worst, they say, things always mend. 

To a Friend in Distress. 

God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform ; 
He plants His footsteps in the sea 
And rides upon the storm. 

Light Shining out of Darkness. 

An idler is a watch that wants both hands ; 

As useless if it goes as when it stands. — Retirement. 

Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much ; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. — The Task. 

Literary Gleaning. — What does Southey say of Cowper? 
Tell of Cowper's childhood and schooldays. Have you read his 
poem, On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture? What does Cowper 
say of himself? Tell about the Unwins, Lady Austen, and John 
Newton. What does Southey say of The Task? Have you read 
fohn Gilpin ? What does Dr. Geikie say about " honesty and truth " ? 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 277. 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

Edmund Burke was born in Dublin, Jan. 12, 1730. Aside from his 
speeches, his principal writings are Essay on the Sublime and Beau- 
tiful, Reflections on the French Revolution, Appeal from the New to 
the Old Whigs, Letters to a Noble Lord, On American Taxation, and 
On Conciliation with America. Burke was educated at Trinity Col- 
lege, Dublin ; and afterwards studied law in London. He soon aban- 
doned law for literature. He first became known to the literary 
world by his publishing anonymously a Vindication of Natural So- 
ciety in imitation of Bolingbroke. The imitation was so good that 
even Samuel Johnson pronounced it to be a posthumous work of 
Bolingbroke. Soon after he published his Essay on the Sublime and 
Beautiful. He was elected to Parliament where he soon had abund- 
ant opportunity to use his wonderful powers of eloquence. Perhaps 
the greatest triumph of his life was his speech on the impeachment 
of Warren Hastings, which is so eloquently described by Macaulay. 
Dr. Johnson says : " No man of sense could meet Burke by accident 
under a gateway, to avoid a shower, without being convinced that he 
was the first man in England." He retired from Parliament in 1794, 
and went to reside near Beaconsfield where he died July 9, 1797- 
His body was interred in the church at Beaconsfield. See Morley's 
Life of Burke and Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. 

Dr. William Robertson was born at Bostwick, Scotland, Sept. 19, 
1721. His father w T as a preacher, and he himself was educated for the 
ministry. In 1759 he published his History of Scotland which was 
followed by History of Charles V. of Germany and History of 
America. He died June 11, 1793. 

Edward Gibbon was born at Putney, in Surrey, April 27, 1737. 
He was educated at Oxford and in Switzerland. His great work, The 
Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, was projected while on a 
visit to Rome. He died in London, Jan. 16, 1794. See Autobiogra- 
phy edited by Milman. 

David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Apr. 26, 1711. He is noted both 
as a historian and a metaphysician. Author of Treatise on Human 
Nature, Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Political Dis- 
courses, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, An Lnquiry Concern- 
ing the Principles of Morals, Natural History of Religion, Dialogues 
on Natural Religion, and his great work, History of England. He 
died in Edinburgh, Aug. 25, 1776. See Hume, by T. H. Huxley in 



278 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Eng. Men of Letters, and Life and Correspondence of Hume, by T. 
Hill Burton. 

Hannah More (1745-1833). A writer of dramas and moral tales. 
Author of Percy, a drama, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, Female 
Education, etc. See Life by Shaw. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan ( 1751-1816 ). Irish dramatist and orator. 
The Rivals and The School for Scandal are his two best comedies. 
See Sheridan, by Mrs. Oliphant in Eng. Men of Letters. 

James Boswell (1740-1795). A friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson and 
his biographer. His Life of fohnson made him famous. 

- • > ■■ < • - 



ALEXANDER POPE 

(1688-1744) 

His poetry is not a mountain-tarn, like that of Wordsworth ; it is not in 
sympathy with the higher moods of the mind; yet it continues entertaining 
in spite of all changes of mode. It was a mirror in a drawing-room, but it gave 
back a faithful image of society, powdered and rouged, to be sure, and intent on 
trifles, yet still as human in its own way as the heroes of Homer in theirs. 

Lowell, 

There are no pictures of nature or of simple emotion in all his writings. 
He is the poet of town life and of high life and of literary life, and seems so 
much afraid of incurring ridicule bj' the display of feeling or unregulated fancy 
that it is not difficult to believe that he would have thought such ridicule well 
directed.— Francis Jeffrey. 

Pope's principal writings are his Pastorals, Essay on 
Criticism, Essay on Man, Moral Essays, Rape of the Lock, 
Dunciad, Windsor Forest, Universal Prayer, Elegy to the 
Memory of a?i Unfortunate Lady, Eloisa to Abelard, and 
his translations of the Iliad and Odyssey. 

Biography. — Alexander Pope was born in London, May 21, 1688. 
About the time of his birth, his father, a well-to-do merchant, retired 
to enjoy the leisure of his country home at Binfield, near Windsor. 
Alexander was dwarfed in body though precocious in mind. His 
education was begun by the priest at home. He spent a short time 
at a Catholic seminary at Twyfold near Winchester. Having insulted 
the teacher and received a severe whipping, he returned to Binfield 
at the age of twelve or thirteen, and began a course of self-instruc- 



ALEXANDER POPE 279 

tion, intending to devote his life to literature. Here at Binfield, in 
Windsor Forest, he read much poetry. He says : " I followed every- 
where as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in 
the field just as they fell in his way." Here he also wrote many 
verses, among them an Ode to Solitude. Of these early poetical 
efforts he says : 

" As yet a child, and all unknown to fame, 
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 

Of his later poems, the Dunciad is the most powerful satire 
ever written ; The Rape of the Lock, the finest mock-heroic poem. 
One of Miss Arabella Fermor's lovely ringlets was slyly cut off by 
her lover, Lord Petre, which act caused an estrangement. Pope 
hoped by his poem to " laugh them together again." His object 
failed, but the poem added greatly to his fame. Addison called it "a 
delicious little thing," and Johnson said : " It is the most airy, the 
most ingenious, and the most delightful of all Pope's compositions.'* 
Swift applauded Pope for his sarcasm and would say : " When you 
think of the world, give it one more lash at my request." Pope's 
translation of Homer brought him about ,£"9,000. It enabled him to 
purchase his villa at Twickenham, on the Thames in the suburbs of 
London. With his five acres he produced wonders in landscape 
gardening. Horace Walpole says : " Pope has twisted and twisted 
and rhymed this, till it appears two or three sweet little lawns, 
opening and opening beyond one another, and the whole surrounded 
by impenetrable woods." Pope's famous grotto at Twickenham was 
fitted up with many little mirrors, that flashed the light in every 
direction. The effect was very pleasing. Here Pope lived with his 
aged mother who had petted and praised her crippled boy all his 
life. There is nothing finer in our literary biography than Pope's 
constant affection and reverence for his parents. In his Prologue to 
the Satires, he says : 

" Me let the tender office long engage, 
To rock the cradle of reposing age; 
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; 
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 
And keep at least one parent from the sky." 

Pope's closing years were very unhappy. His mother was dead, 
and his own health was feeble. He died at Twickenham, May 30, 



280 BRITISH AUTHORS 

1744, and his body was laid to rest in the church at that place. Because 
of his deformity he was called " The Interrogation Point." Because of 
his stinging sarcasm, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu called him " The 
Wicked Wasp of Twickenham." See Lowell's Essay on Pope in Lit- 
erary Essays and Leslie Stephen's Pope in English Men of Letters. 

Character and Criticism. — He was about four feet six inches high, 
very humpbacked and deformed. He wore a black coat, and, accord- 
ing to the fashion of that time, had on a little sword. He had a large 
and very fine eye, and a long, handsome nose ; his mouth had those 
peculiar marks which are always found in the mouths of crooked 
persons, and the muscles which run across the cheek were so strongly 
marked that they seemed like small cords. — Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

As truly as Shakespeare is the poet of man, as God made him, 
dealing with great passions and innate motives, so truly is Pope the 
poet of society, the delineator of manners, the exposer of those 
motives which may be called acquired, whose spring is in institutions 
and habits cf purely worldly origin. ... If to be the greatest 
satirist of individual men, rather than of human nature, if to be the 
highest expression which the life of the court and the ball-room has 
ever found in verse, if to have added more phrases to our language 
than any other but Shakespeare, if to have charmed four generations 
make a man a great poet, — then he is one. . „ . Measured by any 
high standard of imagination, he will be found wanting; tried by 
any test of wit, he is unrivalled. — J. R. LowEEE. 

Memorize the following selections, and read the poems 
in which they are found : 

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, 
But looks through nature up to nature's God. 

Essay on Man. 

'Tis education forms the common mind: 
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. 

Moral Essays. 

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. 

Essay on Man. 

With pleasure own your errors past, 
And make each day a critic on the last. 

Essay on Criticism. 



ALEXANDER POPE 281 

Teach me to feel another's woe, 

To hide the fault I see : 
That mercy I to others show, 

That mercy show to me. — Universal Prayer. 

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 

Essay on Man. 

There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, 
and indeed friendship itself is only a part of virtue. 

Pope, on his deathbedo 

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, 
But vindicate the ways of God to man. 

Essay on Man. 

Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
Act well your part: there all the honor lies. 

Essay on Man. 

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 
Man never is, but always to be, blest. 

Essay on Man. 

In words, as fashions, - the same rule will hold; 
Alike fantastic if too new or old: 
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 

Essay on Criticism. 
Additional familiar lines : 

1. An honest man's the noblest work of God. 

2. Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. 

3. Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. 

4. He's armed without that's innocent within. 

5. By strangers honored and by strangers mourned. 

6. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate. 

7. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 

8. The proper study of mankind is man. 

9. To err is human ; to forgive, divine. 
* 10. Order is Heaven's first law. 

11; I/O ! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind. 
12. A little learning is a dangerous thing. 
13o Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow. 



282 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Lowell and Jeffrey say of Pope? 
Name his principal writings. Give a short sketch of his life. What 
was his object in writing The Rape of The Lock? How was this 
poem regarded by his literary friends ? What nicknames were given 
to Pope ? Give in substance, Reynolds's description of Pope's appear- 
ance. What does Lowell say with regard to his rank as a poet? 
Quote familiar passages from Pope. Have you read Pope's Essay on 
Man ? 



JOSEPH ADDISON 

(1672-1719) 

Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and! 
elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of 
Addison.— Dr. Johnson. 

The great satirist who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it,, 
who without inflicting a wound effected a great social reform, and who recon- 
ciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had 
been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism. — Macaulay. 

Addison's principal writings are his contributions to 
the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, and his poems, The 
Campaign, and Cato, a tragedy. He is also the author of 
several well known hymns. 

Biography. — Joseph Addison, the greatest prose writer of his 
time, was born at Milston, in Wiltshire, England, May 1, 1672. After 
preparation for college at the Charter-house, a famous school in 
London, he was sent to Oxford, where he took high rank. On 
leaving the university he spent some time in study and travel in 
France and Italy. His poem, The Campaign, written to commemo- 
rate the battle of Blenheim and to praise the victor, the Duke of 
Marlborough, was popular and its author was made Under Secretary 
of State and, later, Chief Secretary to Ireland. It was, however, by 
his contributions to the Tatler and Spectator, established by his- 
rollicking college friend "Dick" Steele, that Addison's great powers 



Christianity is the tongue that gives our wishes fitting voice ; the soft 
return, in articulate clearness, from the eternal hills, of the wail of cries and. 
prayers that rises bewildering, around us.— Dr. Geikie : Enteri?ig on Life. 



JOSEPH ADDISON 283 

as a moralist and humorist were made known. " The general pur- 
pose of this paper," said the Tatler, " is to expose the false arts of 
life, to pull off the disguises of cunning vanity and affectation, and 
to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and 
our behavior." Addison's contributions were signed by one of the 
four letters C. L. I. O., either the letters of the name Clio, or the 
initials of Chelsea, London, Islington, and the Office, the places 
where the articles were written. "Cato abounds in generous and 
patriotic sentiments, and contains passages of great dignity and 
sonorous diction." Addison's marriage in 1716 to the Countess- 
dowager of Warwick added to his wealth but not to his happiness. 
He will be remembered longest by The Vision of Mirza and his 
noble, religious hymns such as the one beginning: 

" When all thy mercies, O my God ! 
My rising soul surveys." 

Addison died at Holland House, Kensington, London, June 17, 
1719. See Select Essays of Addison, edited by Samuel Thurber; 
Macaulay's essay on Addison's Life and Writings; Thackeray's 
English Humorists; and Aiken's Memorials of Addison. 

Character and Criticism. — He loved the deep and serious emo- 
tions which reveal to us the nobility of our nature and the infirmity 
of our condition. He employed all his talent and all his writings in 
giving us the notion of what we are worth, and of what we ought to 
be. Of two tragedies which he composed or contemplated, one was 
on the death of Cato, the most virtuous of the Romans ; the other on 
that of Socrates, the most virtuous of the Greeks. . . . Addison, 
good and just himself, trusted in God, also a being good and just. 
He lived willingly in His knowledge and presence, and thought of 
the unknown future which was to complete human nature and 
accomplish moral order. — H. A. Taink. 

Selections. 

'Tis not in mortals to command success, 

But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it. — Cato. 

A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty at- 
tractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good natured. It will 
lighten sickness, poverty, and affliction, convert ignorance into an 
amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable. 

The Tatter. 



284 BRITISH AUTHORS 

The mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversa- 
tion of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life 
that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and vir- 
tuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves 
the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates 
virtue and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and 
finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life. 

The Spectator. 

The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it 
is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in 
such as have been cultivated by great examples, or a refined educa- 
tion. — The Guardian. 

Why shrinks the soul 
Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
And intimates eternity to man. — Cato. 

Literary Gleaning.— What do Dr. Johnson, Macaulay, and 
Taine say of Addison and his writings ? Tell about his childhood 
and schooldays. Tell about the Spectator; the Tatter. Have you 
read The Vision of Mirza? Quote fine passages from Addison's 
writings. What does Dr. Geikie say about " Christianity " ? 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 

John Gay (1688-1732). Poet and dramatist. Author of The Beg- 
gar's Opera, a famous musical drama, Trivia, etc. See Ward's En- 
glish Poets. 

Life is a jest ; and all things show it, 
I thought so once; but now I know it. 

Gay, On his deathbed. 
If the heart of a man is depressed with cares, 
The mist is dispell'd when a woman appears. 

The Beggar's Opera. 
Dr. Edward Young (1684-1765). Author of Night Thoughts, the 
Universal Passion, and the tragedy, Revenge. See Ward's ' En- 
glish Poets. 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 285 

Familiar lines from Young's Night Thoughts : 

1. Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep ! 

2. Procrastination is the thief of time. 

3. He mourns the dead who lives as they desire. 

4. The purpose firm is equal to the deed. 

5. Who does the best his circumstance allows 
Does well, acts nobly: angels could no more. 

6. 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours 
And ask them what report they bore to heaven. 

7. How blessings brighten as they take their flight ! 

8. Too low they build who build beneath the stars. 

9. The man that blushes, is not quite a brute. 

James Thomson (1700-1748). Son of a Scotch minister. His best 
poems are The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence. See Life of 
Thomson by Buchan, and Ward's English Poets. 

Familiar lines from The Seasons : 

1. Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave. 

2. Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 
To teach the young idea how to shoot. 

3. Home is the resort 
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, 
Supporting and supported, polish'd friends 
And dear relations mingle into bliss. 

4. Loveliness 
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, 
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most 

William Collins (1720-1756). His best poems are the odes, The 
Passions, Evening, Liberty, and How Sleep the Brave. See John- 
son's Lives of the Poets. 

" How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes blest." 

Allan Ramsay (1686-1758). Scotch poet. His best poems are 
The Gentle Shepherd, The Last Time I Came o'er the Moor, Loch- 
aber No More, and The Yellow-Haired Laddie. 

Mark Akenside (1721-1770). Poet and physician. Pleasures of 
the Imagination and Hymn to the Naiads are his best poems. 

Sir Richard Steele (1671-1729). Essayist. Founded The Tatter 
in 1709 and in it he began the periodical essay. He also founded 
The Spectator and The Guardian, aided by Addison. 

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Born in Ireland of English parents. 
Educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Took holy orders, and became 



286 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin. He was so morbidly sensitive as to 
greatly embitter his life. His writings are characterized by keenness 
and vigor, but are so coarse and bitter as to be pernicious in their 
tendency. His principal writings are Tale of a Tub. the Drapier's 
Letters, and Gulliver's Travels. He died insane. His body rests in 
St. Patrick's Cathedral. He left his fortune to found a lunatic asylum 
in Dublin. 

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. 

Thoughts on Various Subjects. 
'Tis an old maxim in the schools 
That flattery's the food of fools; 
Yet now and then your men of wit 
Will condescend to take a bit. 

Cadenus and Vanessa. 
Daniel Defoe (1661-1731). Was the son of a London butcher 
named Foe. Not liking the name he wrote it De Foe and afterwards 
Defoe. He failed in all his undertakings. He wrote a pamphlet 
against the High Church for which he was fined, pilloried, and im- 
prisoned for ten years. During his imprisonment his wife and chil- 
dren lived on charity. After his release he gave up political writ- 
ing and began writing fiction. Chief among his numerous works are 
Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and Captain Singleton. Of all 
English books Robinson Crusoe is, doubtless, the most widely read. 
Many generations have read it with delight. " Nobod}' ever laid it 
•down without wishing it were longer," says Johnson. 
Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
The devil builds a chapel there ; 
And 'twill be found, upon examination, 
The latter has the largest congregation. 

The True-Born Englishman. 
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). A philosopher of the highest 
rank, he early manifested the bent of his mind by making little 
mechanical toys — dials, clocks, mills, etc. — and by the ease with 
which he mastered geometry. He was educated at Trinity College, 
Cambridge, where he became professor of mathematics in 1669. He 
became President of the Royal Society, and received the honor of 
knighthood from Queen Anne. He was a friend of John Locke, the 
philosopher. His principal works are the Principia, in which he 
expounds the law of gravitation, and Optics, in which he gives a 
detailed account of his investigations and discoveries in that subject. 
His character and achievements are briefly summed up in his 






CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 287 

epitaph, which translated reads as follows : " Here lies interred 
Isaac Newton, Knight, who, with an energy of mind almost divine, 
guided by the light of mathematics purely his own, first demon- 
strated the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, 
and the causes of the tides ; who discovered, what before his time no 
one had even suspected, that rays of light are differently refrangible, 
and that this is the cause of colors ; and who was a diligent, pene- 
trating, and faithful interpreter of nature, antiquity, and the sacred 
writings. In his philosophy, he maintained the majesty of the 
Supreme Being; in his manners, he expressed the simplicity of the 
gospel. Let mortals congratulate themselves that the world has 
seen so great and excellent a man, the glory of human nature." 
Newton was very modest, at the close of his life he said : " I know 
not what the world may think of my labors ; but to myself I seem to 
have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting 
myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell 
than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered 
before me." See Brewster's Life of Newton. 

George Berkeley (1684-1753). Was born in Ireland and educated 
at Trinity College, Dublin. His chief writings are Principles of 
Human Knowledge, Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher, Theory 
of Vision, and The Querist. He also wrote the poem in which 
occurs the well-known line, " Westward the course of empire takes 
its way." He was a philosopher and mathematician and a man of 
great genius, but many of his ideas were regarded as erroneous. 
He resided for a time in Rhode Island in the hope of furthering his 
project of founding a college in the Bermudas for the purpose of 
"converting the savage Americans to Christianity." The project 
came to an end for lack of support and he returned to London. He 
was afterwards appointed Bishop of Cloyne. In a letter to a friend 
lie writes : " For my own private satisfaction, I had rather be master 
of my time than wear a diadem.'' He was a friend of Pope, Steele, 
Swift, Lord Chesterfield, and others. See Life and Letters of Berke- 
ley, by A. C. Fraser. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1690-1762). Famous for her Letters, 
which are brilliant and satirical, those written from abroad contain 
excellent descriptions of people, customs, etc. She corresponded 
with Pope but afterwards made him her enemy by her ridicule. She 
introduced into England the practice of inoculating for the smallpox. 



288 BRITISH AUTHORS 

JOHN DRYDEN. 

(1631-1700) 

Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords 

The sweetest numbers and the fittest words. — Addison. 

What with his haste and a certain dash, which, according- to our mood, we 
may call florid or splendid, he seems to stand among poets where Rubens does 
among painters,— greater, perhaps, as a colonst than an artist, yet great here 
also, if we compare him with any but the first. — J. R. Lowell. 

Dryden's principal works are his Essay on Dramatic 
Art, the satires (poems), Absalom and Achitophel, The 
Medal, MacFlecknoe, his Religio Laid (a defense of the 
Church of England), and The Hind and the Panther (a de- 
fense of the Church of Rome), and his lyrics, An Ode for 
St. Cecilia's Day, Alexander 's Feast, and the beautiful 
Memorial Ode on Mistress Anne Killigrew. Dryden also 
made a translation of the ALneid, and wrote twenty-eight 
plays for the stage. 

Biography. — Dryden was born at Aldwincle, in Northampton- 
shire, Aug. 9, 1631, of a good family. He studied in Westminster 
School and spent seven years at Cambridge. Little is known of Dry- 
den's boyhood except that he was handsome, shy, fond of the classics, 
and a great reader. Like the age in which he lived, he had no high 
moral aim, and was weak of will and inconstant of purpose. He 
changed his religion or politics to suit the occasion, and was ready 
to espouse any cause that would bring " fame and profit." He says, 
"I confess my chief endeavors are to delight the age in which I live." 
Cowper says, "What a sycophant to the public taste was Dryden! 
Sinning against his feelings, lewd in his writings, though chaste in 
his conversation." He wrote a poem lamenting Cromwell's death, 
but soon after espoused the cause of royalty, and wrote another 
poem welcoming Charles II. to London, for which Charles made him 
poet laureate and historian to the king. At the age of thirty-two he 
married the daughter of the earl of Berkshire, Lady Elizabeth How- 
ard. The marriage was an unhappy one and Dryden spent much of 
his time at Will's Coffee-House. Here it was that Pope, a lad of 
twelve, caught a peep at the great Mr. Dryden, whom he claimed as 



JOHN DRYDEN 289 

his master. Dryden's Alexander's Feast, a song in honor of St. 
Cecilia's Day, which he composed in a single night, is perhaps his 
finest poem. He died May 1, 1700, just three hundred years after the 
death of Chaucer, and his body was conveyed in state to Westminster 
Abbey, and was laid to rest between the tombs of Chaucer and Cow- 
ley. See Lowell's Essay on Dryden, Macaulay's Essay on Dryden, 
and Dryden, by Saintsbury in English Men of Letters. 

Character and Criticism. — He was of a nature exceedingly hu- 
mane and compassionate, ready to forgive injuries, and capable of a 
sincere reconciliation with those who had offended him. His friend- 
ship, where he professed, went beyond his professions. He was of a 
very easy, of very pleasing access ; but somewhat slow, and, as it 
were, diffident, in his advances to others; he had that in nature which 
abhorred intrusion into any society whatever. He was therefore less 
known, and consequently his character became more liable to misap- 
prehensions and misrepresentations. — Congreve. 

In mind and manner his foremost quality is energy. In ripeness 
of mind and bluff heartiness of expression, he takes rank with the 
best. His phrase is always a short-cut to his sense, for his estate was 
too spacious for him to need that trick of winding the path of his 
thought about, and planting it out with clumps of epithet, by which 
the landscape-gardeners of literature give to a paltry half-acre the air 
of a park. . . . He had, beyond most, the gift of the right word. 
And if he does not, like one or two of the greater masters of song, 
stir our sympathies by that indefinable aroma so magical in arousing 
the subtle associations of the soul, he has this in common with the 
few great writers, that the winged seeds of his thought embed them- 
selves in the memory and germinate there. — J. R. Lowell. 

Memorize the following selections and read the poems 
in which they are found : 

Errors like straws upon the surface flow; 

He who would search for pearls must dive below. 

All for Love. 
Forgiveness to the injured does belong, 
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong. 

Conquest of Granada. 
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees, 
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. — Ovid. 



290 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Happy the man, and happy he alone, 

He, who can call to-day his own : 

He, who secure within, can say, 

To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day. 

Imitation of the 2gth of Horace. 

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought 
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. 
The wise for cure on exercise depend : 
God never made his work for man to mend. 

Cymon and Iphigenia. 
Familiar lines from Dryden: 

1. None but the brave deserves the fair. 

2. Men are but children of a larger growth. 

3. Eove either finds equality or makes it. 

4. Few know the use of life before 'tis past. 

5. Time gives himself and is not valued. 

6. The greatest argument for love is love. 

7. Trust in noble natures obliges them the more. 

8. The secret pleasure of the generous act 
Is the great mind's great bribe. 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Addison and Lowell say of 
Dryden ? Name Dryden's principal writings. Give a brief sketch 
of his life. Did he use his talent for writing to exalt public senti- 
ment? What is regarded as his finest poem? Tell what Congreve 
says about Dryden's nature ; what Lowell says about his writings. 
Quote passages from the writings of Dryden. Have you read Alex- 
ander's Feast ? 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 

John Bunyan (1628-1688). Author of The Pilgrim's Progress, 
The Holy War, and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. 
The Pilgrim's Progress is regarded as the greatest allegory ever 
written. It is alike interesting to the child and the man of letters. 
Besides going through innumerable English editions, it has been 
translated into most of the languages of Europe. It is so widely 
read, that it is scarcely necessary to say that it depicts the life of a 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERb 291 

Christian, his trials, temptations, consolations, and final triumph. 
Bunyan was at first a tinker, who afterwards became a preacher. 
Among the sins of which he speaks of being guilty, when steeped in 
profligacy and wickedness, were, besides profane swearing, ringing 
bells, dancing, and playing at hockey. He at once abandoned his 
practice of swearing, when remonstrated with by a woman. He was 
arrested and imprisoned in Bedford jail for several years for preach- 
ing contrary to law. The Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs were his 
■sole reading while in jail. During his imprisonment he wrote The 
Pilgrim's Progress and other pious works. He died in London 
while there on a preaching tour. Macaulay says : " The history 
of Bunyan is the history of a most excitable mind in an age of 
excitement. By most of his biographers he has been treated with 
gross injustice. They have understood in a popular sense all those 
strong terms of self-condemnation which he employed in a theo- 
logical sense. They have, therefore, represented him as an aband- 
oned wretch reclaimed by means almost miraculous. . . . Those 
horrible internal conflicts which Bunyan has described with so much 
power of language prove, not that he was a worse man than his 
neighbors, but that his mind was constantly occupied by religious 
considerations, that his fervor exceeded his knowledge, and that his 
imagination exercised despotic power over his body and mind." See 
Macaulay's Essay John Bunyan, and Bunyan, by J. A. Froude in Eng. 
Men of Letters. 

Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale 
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail ; 
Whose humorous vein, strong sense, and simple style, 
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile. 

Cowper. 
Samuel Butler (1612-1680). Author of Hudibras, a satirical poem 
ridiculing the Puritans. It met with general favor but is now seldom 
read. The following familiar lines are from Hudibras : 

1. He that runs may fight again, 
Which he can never do that's slain. 

2. He that complies against his will 
Is of his own opinion still. 

3. For truth is precious and divine — 
Too rich a thing for carnal swine. 

4. For what is worth in anything, 
But so much money as 'twill bring? 



292 BRITISH AUTHORS 

John Locke (1632-1704). Philosopher. Author of the famous 
essay, On the Conduct of the Understanding. The chief of his other 
writings are Thoughts Concerning Education, and The Reasonable- 
ness of Christianity. See Life of Locke by T. Fowler in Eng. Men 
of Letters. 

John Evelyn (1620-1706). Author of several scientific works 
written in a popular style. His Sylva, a discourse on forest trees, in- 
duced the planting of oaks which a century later were used in build- 
ing war-ships. Terra is a work relating to the culture and improve- 
ment of the soil and the propagation of plants. 

Sir William Temple (1628-1699). A statesman and miscellaneous 
writer. Author of Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning. 
Quite a bitter controversy took place with regard to the Greek 
Epistles of Phalaris, Temple having quoted them as an illustration 
of his statement, that " the oldest books we have are still in their 
kind the best." A new edition of the Epistles was published by 
Boyle. The celebrated critic, Richard Bentley, who was a thorough 
Greek scholar, demonstrated the Epistles to be a forgery, and also 
spoke slightingly of Temple. Swift published the Battle of the 
Books in behalf of his patron, Temple. 

Samuel Pepys (1632-1703). He kept a diary, in shorthand, ex- 
tending over nine years. It is a true picture of the times and a work 
of great interest. It was published by Lord Braybrooke in 1825. 



■>-<< 



JOHN MILTON 

(1625-1660) 

The first place among our English poets is due to Milton. — Addison. 

Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English lit- 
erature, the champion and the martyr of English liberty. — Macaulay. 

Was there ever anything so delightful as the music of Paradise Lost? It 
is like that of a fine organ ; has the fullest and the deepest tones of majesty, 
with all the softness and elegance of the Dorian flute.— Cowper. 

Milton's principal writings are his poems, Paradise 
Lost, Paradise Regained, Hymn on the Nativity, Samson 
Agonistes, Comus. Arcades, Lycidas, If Allegro, II Pense- 
rosa, and a sonnet, On his Blindness. His prose, Tract o?t 



JOHN MILTON 293 

Education, Areopagitica, Defensio Populi, Of Reformatio7i 
in England, and History of England. 

Biography. — Milton was born in London, Dec. 9, 1608. His father 
was a Puritan, intelligent and industrious, a lover of music and liter- 
ature. Milton says : " My father destined me, while yet a child, to 
the study of polite literature, which I embraced with such avidity, 
that from the twelfth year of my age I hardly ever retired to my rest 
from my studies till midnight — which was the first source of injury 
to my eyes, to the natural weakness of which were added frequent 
headaches." As a child Milton was remarkable for personal beauty, 
a sweet voice, a pleasing manner, literary and musical taste, and dig- 
nity and purity of thought and life. He was prepared for college by 
a learned Scotch divine and at St. Paul's School, London, entering 
Christ's College, Cambridge, at the age of sixteen. At college he was 
earnest and independent, and spent the time devouring the classics 
and noble poetry of all literature, and wrote his immortal Hymn on 
the Nativity. Returning to Horton, to which place the family had 
removed in his childhood, he spent five years at leisure in the midst 
of delightful rural scenery, reading, dreaming, and indulging his pas- 
sion for music. In these years he wrote // Penserosa, LJ Allegro % 
Comus, Arcades, and Lycidas. Lycidas was written in memory of a 
college friend, Edward King, who perished by shipwreck. He spent 
fifteen months traveling and studying in France and Italy, meeting 
Galileo and other noted men. But hearing of the rupture between 
Charles I. and Parliament, he hastily returned to Kngland, saying: 
" I thought it base to be traveling for intellectual culture abroad 
while my fellow-citizens were fighting for liberty at home." Many 
years of exceedingly bitter political and religious controversies, in- 
numerable trials, and finally total blindness, did not deter Milton 
from producing a great epic as he early determined to do. Seven 
years were spent on Paradise Lost. His Quaker friend, Thomas El- 
wood, suggested to Milton the writing of Paradise Regained. Lan- 
dor says : " After I have been reading the Paradise Lost I can take 
up no other poet with satisfaction. I seem to have left the music of 
Handel for the music of the street." Lowell says: "Our language 
has no finer poem than Samson Agonistes, if any so fine in the qual- 
ity of austere dignity or in the skill with which the poet's personal 



L,et us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the 
end dare to do our duty as we understand it.— Abraham Lincoln. 



294 BRITISH AUTHORS 

experience is generalized into a classic tragedy." The hero's suffer- 
ings, blindness, and resignation to the will of God make a touching 
picture of Milton's own closing years. He died Nov. 8, 1674, and his 
body was laid to rest in Cripplegate Churchyard. See Masson's Life 
of Milton, Macaulay 's Essay on Milton, and Lowell's Essay on Milton.. 

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea — 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 

So didst thou travel on life's common way, 

In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 

The lowliest duties on herself did la}'. 

Wordsworth: Ode to Milton. 

Criticism. — The works of Milton cannot be comprehended or en- 
joyed, unless the mind of the reader co-operate with that of the 
writer. He does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere pas- 
sive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. 
He strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make out the 
melody. . . . His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies 
less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would 
seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. 
But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced, 
than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty 
start at once into existence, and all the burial places of the memory 
give up their dead. — Macaulay. 

His more elaborate passages have the multitudinous roll of 
thunder, dying away to gather a sullen force again from its own 
reverberations, but he knew that the attention is recalled and ar- 
rested by those claps that stop short without echo and leave us listen- 
ing. There are no such vistas and avenues of verse as his. In read- 
ing the Paradise Lost one has a feeling of spaciousness such as no 
other poet gives. — LowEU,. 



Note.— With his first wife, Mary Powell, Milton was unhappy, and of the 
three daughters of this marriage, two were unkind to their father. Milton bore 
his trials with a beautiful serenity and fortitude, and would not condescend to 
little things. Deborah, his one affectionate and faithful daughter, speaks of 
his cheerfulness and describes him as the soul of conversation. His second 
wife, Katharine Woodcock, to whom he pays a noble tribute, died after little 
more than a year's marriage. His third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, whom he 
married in 1664, survived him more than half a century. 



JOHN MILTON 295 

Memorize the following selections: 

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, em- 
balmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 

Areopagitica. 
The childhood shows the man, 
As morning shows the day. — Paradise Regained. 

God attributes to place 
No sanctity, if none be thither brought 
By men who there frequent. — Paradise Lost. 

God doth not need 
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state 
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; 
They also serve who only stand and wait. 

Sonnet, On his Blindness. 

Mortals, that would follow me, 

Love Virtue, she alone is free : 

She can teach ye how to climb 

Higher than the sphery chime; 

Or, if Virtue feeble were, 

Heaven itself would stoop to her. — Comus. 

I call, therefore, a complete and generous education, that which 
fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, all the 
offices, both private and public, of peace and war. 

Tract on Education. 

Literary Gleaning.— Quote what Addison, Macaulay, and 
Cowper say of Milton and his writings. Name Milton's principal 
writings and tell which of them you have read. Have you read in 
Paradise Lost the morning hymn in Paradise, beginning, "These 
are thy glorious works, Parent of good," and evening in Paradise, 
beginning, " Now came still evening on, and twilight gray " ? Have 
you read Eve's lament on leaving Paradise, beginning, 

" O unexpected stroke; worse than of death! 
Must I leave thee, Paradise ? " 

Tell about Milton's childhood, schooldays, the five years of leisure 



296 BRITISH AUTHORS 

at Horton, his tour in France and Italy. What does he say about his 
return to England? Have you read in English history about Charles 
I. and Cromwell? What does Lowell say of Samson Agonistes? 
Have you read it? What does Landor say of Paradise Lost? Have 
you read Macaulay's Essay on Milton, and Wordsworth's Ode to 
Milton, beginning, "Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour"? 
Quote favorite passages from Milton's writings. What does Lincoln 
say about "right" and "might"? 



■ >$-< 

CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 

Edmund Waller (1605-1687). Cousin to the patriot Hampden. 
He was Roundhead or royalist whichever seemed most politic. 
Author of a number of short poems whose chief merit is their 
smoothness and elegance. Among them are Go Lovely Rose, On a 
Girdle, The Bud, and Old Age and Death. 

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, 

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. 

Old Age and Death. 
Robert Herrick (1591-1674). Poet and preacher. His poems are, 
lyrics, graceful and sprightly. Author of Hesperides, Cherry Ripe, 
To Daffodils, etc. See Ward's Eng. Poets. 

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may 

Old Time is still a-flying, 
And this same flower that smiles to-day 
To-morrow will be dying. 

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time. 

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667). A very popular poet in his time. 

In his fifteenth year he published Poetical Blossoms by A. C. His 

poems are all included in Miscellanies, The Mistress, or Love Verses, 

Pindaric Odes, and The Davideis. 

Sir John Suckling (1609-1641). Distinguished at the court of 
Charles I. for his wit and munificence. A Ballad Upon a Wedding 
is the best known of his gay, airy verses. 

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Philosopher. A friend of Galileo, 
Descartes, Cowley, Selden, and Dr. Harvey, the discoverer of the 
circulation of the blood. His great work is the Leviathan, in which 
" man is represented as a selfish and ferocious animal, requiring the 
strong hand of despotism to keep him in check ; and all notions of 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 297 

right and wrong are made to depend upon views of self-interest 
alone." This doctrine was known as the Selfish System of moral 
philosophy and has been opposed by many eminent philosophers. 
His other works are Treatise on Human Nature and translations 
of the Odyssey and Iliad. 

Jeremey Taylor (1613-1667). Has been called the " Shakespeare" 
and also the "Spenser" of theological literature, his writings 
abounding in metaphor and poetical allusions. Author of Sermons, 
The Life of Christ, Holy Living and Holy Dying, Liberty of 
Prophesying, etc. 

Richard Baxter (1615-1691). An eminent Non-conformist divine. 
Author of one hundred and sixty-eight works, among them Saints' 
Pest, Call to the Unconverted, Reasons of the Christian Religion, 
-and Life of Faith. 

Dr. Isaac Barrow (1630-1677). As a mathematician Sir Isaac 
Newton, who succeeded him as professor of mathematics in Cam- 
bridge University, is his only superior. He became eminent as a 
theologian and it is by his theological works that he is generally 
known. Author of mathematical works, and treatises on the Lord's 
Prayer, the Decalogue, the Creed, etc. 

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661). Historian and divine. Author of 
The Worthies of Engla?id, Church History of Britain, The Profane 
State, The Holy State, History of the Holy War, etc. 

Izaak Walton (1593-1683). A London linendraper who married 
the sister of Dr. Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and thereby made 
the acquaintance of many eminent men. Author of The Complete 
Angler, and lives of Richard Hooker, George Herbert, Dr. Donne, 
and Bishop Sanderson. 

Algernon Sidney (1621-1683). Son of Robert, Earl of Leicester. 
A noted Republican writer. Author of Discourses on Government. 
He Was beheaded. 

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). A physician. Author of Religio 
Medici (The Religion of a Physician), Pseudodoxia Epidemica (a 
treatise on Vulgar Errors), and Hydriotaphia, or Urn Burial. An 
original but eccentric writer. 

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1608-1673). He published many 
papers in the royal cause during the Civil War in England. Author 
of History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England and Essay 
on an Active and Contemplative Life. 



298 BRITISH AUTHORS 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

(1564-1616) 

Sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child. — Milton. 

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be, 
Within that circle none durst walk but he. — Dryden. 

I am always happy to meet persons who perceive the transcendent su- 
periority of Shakespeare over all other writers. — Kmerson. 

Shakespeare's language is no longer the mere vehicle of thought, it has 
become part of it, its very flesh and blood. The pleasure it gives us is un- 
mixed, direct, like that from the smell of a flower or the flavor of a fruit. 

IvOW-ELL. 

Shakespeare is of no age. He speaks a language which thrills in our 
blood in spite of the separation of two hundred years. His thoughts, passions, 
feelings, strains of fancy, all are of this day as they were of his own ; and his 
genius may be contemporary with the mind of every generation for a thousand 
years to come. — Prof. Wilson. 

He has a lofty and a fearless trust in his own powers, and in the beauty 
and excellence of virtue ; and, with his eye fixed on the lode-star of truth, 
steers us triumphantly among shoals and quicksands, where, with any other 
pilot, we had been wrecked. — Mrs. Jameson. 

Of the thirty-seven dramas which Shakespeare either 
wrote or remodeled, there are fourteen comedies, six trag- 
edies, and seventeen historical plays. Among his best 
comedies are The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, The 
Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew,, 
Comedy of Errors, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. His 
tragedies are Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, Romeo 
and fuliet, and Cymbeline. Among his best historical plays- 
are fulius Ccssar, Henry IV., Henry VIII, King fohn,, 
and Richard HI These historical plays are also tragedies. 
Besides his dramas, Shakespeare wrote the romantic poems, 
Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, The Passionate Pilgrim, A 
Lover's Complaint, and one hundred and fifty-four sonnets. 

A thorough knowledge and a sympathetic appreciation 
of Shakespeare is of itself a liberal education. To acquire 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 299' 

such a knowledge and appreciation, students should begin 
with such plays as The Merchant of Venice, As You Like 
It, and Julius Ccssar, following with Henry VIII. , Hamlet, 
King Lear, etc.* The school editions (each play separate 
with many valuable notes and helps), such as Rolfe's, 
Hudson's, and Kellogg's are the best for general use. 

Many of Shakespeare's imaginary men and women are 
drawn with such matchless power and vividness that they 
are more real to us than the real men and women we meet 
every day, and influence us more. Of Portia, Mrs. Jame- 
son says: ''She treads as though her footsteps had been 
among marble palaces, beneath roofs of fretted gold, o'er 
cedar floors and pavements of jasper and porphyry — amid 
gardens full of statues, and flowers, and fountains, and 
haunting music." 

Biography. — William Shakespeare, the greatest literary genius of 
all time, was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in the county of Warwick, 
in April, 1564. Tradition informs us that he was born on the 23rd, 
but all we know with certainty is that he was christened on the 26th, 
His father, John Shakespeare, though "innocent of books," was a 



For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusions of poetry. A hen> 
of fiction that never existed, is just as valuable to me as a hero of history that 
existed a thousand years since : and, if I may be excused such an insensibility to 
the common ties of human nature, I would not give up fat Jack for half the great 
men of ancient chronicle. What have the heroes of yore done for me, or men like 
me? . . . But old Jack Falstaff ! — kind Jack Falstaff! — sweet Jack Falstaff! 
has enlarged the boundaries of human enjoyment ; he has added vast regions of 
wit and good-humor, in which the poorest man may revel ; and has bequeathed 
a never-failing inheritance of jolly laughter, to make mankind merrier and bet- 
ter to the latest posterity. — Irving : The Sketch-Book. 

*It is far better to read Shakespeare's plays than to see them acted. The 
ordinary stage manager is quite unable to resist the temptation to make a bril- 
liant stage effect by omitting or passing lightly over the finest literary passages 
and giving undue prominence to that which will produce startling effects. 
Young people of the country and smaller towns and cities have no good reason 
to feel that they are losing in a literary way by never going to the theater. Ex- 
cept in the case of a scholarly, refined, and famous actor it is better not to see 
these plays on the stage. The best way is to make a careful study of each play, 
marking and memorizing the noblest lines, and reading the best criticisms. 



300 BRITISH AUTHORS 

man of much natural ability, and held several important offices at 
Stratford. The poet's mother, whose maiden name was Mary Arden, 
was a rustic heiress of gentle birth, from whom, it seems quite prob- 
able, her illustrious son inherited many of his noblest traits of char- 
acter, as the Ardens had belonged to the Warwickshire gentry since 
before the Conquest, two of that name having held places of distinc- 
tion in the king's household. As the mother of Shakespeare, De- 
Quincey says of her : " How august a title to the reverence of infinite 
generations, and of centuries beyond the vision of prophecy ! " 

Stratford and vicinity is famous for its natural beauty, and no 
better place could be found for a genius, like Shakespeare, to spend 
his childhood. Drayton called Warwickshire " the heart of England," 
and Dowden says : " The country around Stratford presents the per- 
fection of quiet English scenery ; it is remarkable for its wealth of 
lovely wild-flowers, for its deep meadows on each side of the tranquil 
Avon, and for its rich, sweet woodlands. The town itself, in Shakes- 
peare's time, numbered about 1,400 inhabitants; a town of scattered 
timber houses, possessing two chief buildings — the stately church by 
the river-side, and the Guildhall, where companies of players would 
at times perform, when the corporation secured their services." 

Young Shakespeare was sent to the Free Grammar School of 
Stratford, where he was taught English and the rudiments of Latin 
and Greek. His classical learning is described by Ben Jonson as 
" small Latin and less Greek." Later in life, perhaps while in Lon- 
don, Shakespeare acquired at least a partial knowledge of French 
and Italian. In speaking of his education, it should be kept in mind 
that such a remarkable genius as Shakespeare has marvelous powers 
for absorbing knowledge from nature, books, and daily experiences. 
Emerson's statement, that the greatest men have the shortest biog- 
raphies, is fully verified in the case of Shakespeare. Much that is 
written of him is of uncertain authority. We know, however, that 
when he was only eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, who was 
seven or eight years his senior, and that three children were born to 
them, Susanna, and the twins, Hamnet and Judith. At the age of 
thirty-three, after he had won literary fame in London, " he pur- 
chased New Place, the finest house in Stratford, making it a home 
for his family, and a refuge for his parents ;" and in 1602 he bought 
one hundred and seven acres of land. He spent the last years of his 
life at Stratford amid the scenes of his childhood, and died there 
April 23, 1616. Irving writes: "From the birthplace of Shakespeare 
a few paces brought me to his grave. He lies buried in the chaucel 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 301 

/ 

of the parish church, a large and venerable pile, mouldering with 
age, but richly ornamented. It stands on the banks of the Avon, on 
an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the 
suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired: the river 
runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and the elms which 
grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom." He 
has been called "the Bard of Avon," and by his friend, Ben Jonson, 
"sweet swan of Avon." Other epithets applied to him are "honey- 
tongued," "silver-tongued," "mellifluous," "gentle," and "beloved." 
He was on terms of intimate friendship with most of the celebri- 
ties of the day, among them Jonson, Raleigh, Bacon, Beaumont, 
P'letcher, Massinger, and the Earls of Southampton, Pembroke, and 
Montgomery. 

Character and Criticism. — He had the prodigious faculty of seeing 
in the twinkling of an eye a complete character, body, mind, past 
and present, in every detail and every depth of his being, with the 
exact attitude and the expression of face which the situation 
demanded. . . . His fantasy is a light tissue of bold inventions, 
of ardent passions, melancholy mockery, dazzling poetry. Ready, 
impetuous, impassioned, delicate, his genius is pure imagination, 
touched more vividly and by slighter things than ours. . . . He 
never sees anything tranquilly. He is buried and absorbed in the 
present image or idea. Behind a word he has a whole picture, an 
attitude, a long argument abridged, a mass of swarming ideas. 
Hence his style is blooming with exuberant images — loaded with 
exaggerated metaphors whose strangeness is like incoherence, whose 
wealth is superabundant. — TainE. 

In Shakespeare it is always the higher thing, the thought, the 
fancy, that is pre-eminent , it is Caesar that draws all eyes, and not 
the ckariot in which he rides, or the throng which is but the rever- 
beration of his supremacy. If not, how explain the charm with 
which he dominates in all tongues, even under the disenchantment 
of translation ? Among the most alien races he is as solidly at 
home as a mountain seen from different sides by many lands, itself 
superbly solitary, yet the companion of all thoughts and domesticated 
in all imaginations. . . . But higher even than the genius I rate 
the character of this unique man, and the grand impersonality of 
what he wrote. What has he told us of himself ? If he had sorrows^ 
he has made them the woof of everlasting consolation to his kind ; 
and if, as poets are wont to whine, the outward world was cold to 



302 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Trim, its biting air did but trace itself in loveliest frost-work of fancy 
■on the many windows of that self-centered and cheerful soul. 

LowEUv. 
References. — Longfellow's poem, To the Avon ; Holmes's poems, 
Shakespeare and Poem (dedication of fountain at Stratford) ; Shakes- 
peare Once More in Lowell's Literary Essays; Shakespeare in Em- 
erson's Representative Men; Shakespeare's Critics in Whipple's Es- 
says and Reviews; Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist ; 
Hudson's Lectures on Shakespeare ; Stratford -on -Avon, in Irving's 
Sketch-Book ; Victor Hugo's William Shakespeare ; Dowden's Shakes- 
peare's Mind and Art ; Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics of Women ; 
Richard Grant White's Studies in Shakespeare ; Mrs. Shakespeare 
in Ladies Home Journal, March, 1 895. 

Selections. 

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels 
had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. 

Merchant of Venice. 
There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. — Julius Ccesar. 

Corruption wins not more than honesty. 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace 

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: 

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 

Thy God's, and truth's. — Henry VIII. 

But he that filches from me my good name, 
Robs me of that which not enriches him, 
And makes me poor indeed. — Othello. 

One good deed dying tongueless 
Strangles a thousand, waiting upon that. 

Winter's Tale. 

Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; 
And he but naked, though locked up in steel; 
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. 

Henry VI. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 303 

Familiar Hues from Shakespeare: 

1. Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. 

2. Her voice was ever 
Gentle and low; an excellent thing in woman.. 

3. Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care. 

4. It is the bright day that brings forth the adder. 

5. L,ike sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. 

6. How use doth breed a habit in a man ! 

7. He hath eaten me out of house and home. 

S. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, 
And some have greatness thrust upon them. 

9. If all the year were playing holidays, 
To sport would be as tedious as to work. 

10. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
To have a thankless child. 

11. One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin. 

12. How poor are they that have no patience. 

13. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody. 

14. All that glisters is not gold. 

15. Talkers are no good doers. 

16. Brevity is the soul of wit. 

17. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 

18. True nobility is exempt from fear. 

19. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. 

20. Sweets grown common lose their dear delight. 

Literary Gleaning. — Quote what Milton, Dryden, Emerson, 
Lowell, and Mrs. Jameson say about Shakespeare. Tell about 
Shakespeare's dramas. How many have you read ? Have you read 
The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Julius Ccesar, marking 
and memorizing the choicest thoughts? What does Mrs. Jameson 
say about Portia? Tell about the other characters in the play, and 
quote the lines beginning, " If to do were as easy," and " The quality 
of mercy is not strained." Tell about the characters in As You Like 
It, and quote Adam's words beginning, " Though I look old, yet I 
am strong and lusty," and the lines beginning, " Sweet are the uses 
of adversity," and other choice passages. Tell about the characters 
in Julius Ccesar, and quote the lines beginning, " There is a tide," 



304 BRITISH AUTHORS 

and " His life was gentle." Who was the " noblest Roman " ? Who 
said, " The evil that men do lives after them " ? Tell about " a lean 
and hungry look," "if you were gentle Brutus," and quote the lines 
beginning, " For, when the noble Csesar saw him stab," and " There 
are no tricks in plain and simple faith." Tell about Hamlet, King 
Lear, Macbeth, and quote choice lines. Tell about the following 
characters in Shakespeare's plays: Portia, Isabella, Beatrice, Rosa- 
lind, Juliet, Helena, Perdita, Viola, Ophelia, Miranda, Hermione, 
Desdemona, Imogen, and Cordelia. Have you read Lowell's essay, 
Shakespeare Once More, and Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics of 
Women ? 



EDMUND SPENSER 

( 1553-1599 ) 

I love the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 

The songs of Spenser's golden days 
Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. 

Whittier. 
The land of Spenser is the land of Dream, but it is also the land of Rest. 
To read him is like dreaming awake, without even the trouble of doing it your- 
self, but letting it be done for you by the finest dreamer that ever lived, who 
knows how to color his dreams like life and make them move before you in 
music. — Lowell. 

Spenser's greatest poem is the Faery Queen, an alle- 
gory in six books, in which by representing the contending 
virtues and vices by different personages in the story, he 
shows the continual warfare between good and evil, and 
the beauty and final triumph of goodness. His best minor 
poems are the Shepherd's Calendar, The Tears of the Muses, 
Mother Hubbard 's Tale, Daphnaida, Amoretti,Prothalamion, 
Epithalamion, and his Elegy of Astrophel, written on the 
death of his friend, Sir Philip Sidney. 

Biography. — Born in London, near the Tower, in 1553.* Noth- 
ing is known of his parents, except that his mother's name was 



-See Lowell's Literary Essays, vol. IV, p. 284. 



EDMUND SPENSER 305 

Elizabeth. Spenser claimed to be a descendant of the ancient house 
of Spenser. In his Prothalamion, he says : 

" Merry London, my most kindly nurse, 
That to me gave this life's first native source, 
Though from another house I take my name, 
An house of ancient fame." 
Gibbon says that the noble family of Spenser should consider 
the Faery Queen as the most precious jewel in their coronet. Spen- 
ser spent seven years in Pembroke College, Cambridge, taking the 
degree of M. A. in 1576. His college friend, Gabriel Harvey, intro- 
duced Spenser to Sir Philip Sidney, " one of the very diamonds of 
her majesty's court." Spenser dedicated his Shepherd' 's Calendar to 
Sidney, who became his friend and patron, and introduced him to 
the Earl of Leicester. Lord Grey was sent as Lord-Deputy to Ire- 
land, and Spenser went with him as his secretary. Spenser obtained 
a grant of land in Ireland, and took up his abode in Kilcolman 
Castle, a place remarkable for its delightful natural scenery. Here 
he wrote the Faery Queen and entertained his friend, Sir Walter 
Raleigh, and other illustrious persons. This happiness was destined 
to be of short duration. In October of 1598, an insurrection was or- 
ganized, and the insurgents attacked Kilcolman, robbed, plundered, 
and set fire to the castle. Spenser and his wife escaped, but their in- 
fant child perished in the flames. The poet, broken-hearted and im- 
poverished, reached London, where he died Jan. 13, 1599. His body 
was interred near the tomb of Chaucer in Westminster Abbey, and 
"his hearse attended by his brother-poets, who threw mournful 
elegies into his grave." Thirty years after his death a monument 
was erected over his grave by Anne, Countess of Dorset. Lamb calls 
Spenser " the poets' poet," Milton, " Our sage and serious Spenser," 
and Hazlitt says, " Of all the poets, he is the most poetical." Taine 
sums up his life in these words : " Expectations and rebuffs, many 
sorrows and many dreams, some few joys and a sudden and frightful 
calamity, a small fortune and a premature end ; this indeed was a 
poet's life." See Lowell's Essay on Spenser ; Craik's Spenser and his 
Poetry, and Church's Spenser in Eng. Men of Letters. 

Character and Criticism. — Spenser is the most luxuriant and me- 
lodious of all our descriptive poets. His creation of scenes and ob- 
jects is infinite, and in free and sonorous versification he has not yet 
been surpassed. His " lofty rhyme " has a swell and cadence, and a 
continuous sweetness, that we can find nowhere else. 

Chambers's Cyc. of Eng. Literature. 



306 BRITISH AUTHORS 

All that we know of him is amiable and of good report. He 
was faithful to the friendships of his youth, pure in his loves, unspot- 
ted in his life. Above all, the ideal with him was not a thing apart 
and unattainable, but the sweetener and ennobler of the street and 
the fireside. . . . Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever 
can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes 
to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent 
for a time, let him read in the Faery Queen. There is the land of 
pure heart's ease, where no ache or sorrow of spirit can enter. 

Lowell: Essay on Spenser. 

Extracts from the Faery Queen: 

Take thy balance, if thou be so wise, 

And weigh the wind that under heaven doth blow; 

Or weigh the light that in the east cloth rise; 

Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow. 

Who will not mercy unto others show, 
How can he mercy ever hope to have ? 

The noblest mind the best contentment has. 

And is there care in heaven ? And is there love 
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base 
That may compassion of their evils move? 

There is, else much more wretched were the case 
Of men than beasts ; but oh, the exceeding grace 
Of highest God, that loves his creatures so, 

And all his works with mercy doth embrace, 
That blessed angels he sends to and fro, 
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe ! 

The following selection is from A71 Hymn in Honor 
of Beauty : 

So every spirit, as it is most pure, 

And hath in it the more of heavenly light, 

So it the fairer body doth procure 

To habit in, and it more fairly dight 

With cheerful grace and amiable sight, 

For of the soul the body form doth take ; 

For soul is form, and doth the body make. 






FRANCIS BACON 307 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Whittier and Lowell say of 
Spenser and his writings? Tell about the Faery Queen and Kilcol- 
man Castle. What do Lamb, Milton, Hazlitt and Taine say of 
Spenser? Have you read Lowell's Essay on Spenser? Quote noble 
lines from Spenser's writings. 



FRANCIS BACON 

(1561-1626) 

He had the sound, distinct, comprehensive knowledge of Aristotle, with 
all the beautiful lights, graces, and embellishments of Cicero.— Addison. 

His principal writings are Essays, fifty-eight in number, 
Instauratio Magna, containing four parts — The Advance- 
ment of Learning, Novum Organum (The New Instrument), 
Sylva Sylvarium or History of Nature, Scala Intellectus or 
The Ladder of the Intellect — Of the Wisdom of the Ancie?its, 
Felicities of Queen Elizabeth 's Reign, History of King Henry 
VII, The New Atlantis, and some minor works. 

Biography. — Francis Bacon, son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord 
Keeper of the great seal, was born in London, Jan. 22, 1561. His 
mother was noted for her brilliancy and scholarship, and her son 
early manifested an inclination for learning. He studied at Cam- 
bridge, which he entered at thirteen, and afterwards on the conti- 
nent. * His father's death recalled him to England, where he was 
obliged to enter the profession of law, in which he distinguished 
himself. He appealed in vain to his uncle, Lord Btirleigh, the 
Prime Minister, for an office under the government, and then turned 
to Essex, who befriended him and gave him an estate worth 
;£" 1,800. When Essex was on trial for a conspiracy against the 
queen, Bacon not only appeared as counsel against him, but used 
all his powers of eloquence to magnify his offense. Pope justly 
calls him, 

" The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 

On the succession of James, Bacon became successively King's 
Counsel, Solicitor-General, Judge of the Marshalsea Court, Attorney- 
General, and finally Lord High Chancellor. He had increased his 
income by marrying a rich wife, and now as Chancellor he had 



308 BRITISH AUTHORS 

reached the zenith of his ambition. In this office he was unfaithful 
to his duty, receiving bribes, and rendering unjust decisions, for 
which he was banished from the court. Being relieved from public 
duties, he now had ample time to pursue his philosophical and 
literary work which had never been wholly neglected. His Essays 
appeared first, which from the interest of the subjects and their 
intrinsic merit attained a popularity which they have never lost. 
Dugald Stewart says of this work : " It may be read from beginning 
to end in a few hours, and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one 
seldom fails to remark in it something overlooked before." Next 
appeared his Instauratio Magna in which is embodied his system 
of philosophy. It was his intention to have this work in six parts 
but he completed only four. Of these the Novum, Organum is the 
most important as it expounds and exemplifies his inductive method 
of reasoning. This work has earned him the title of the " father 
of experimental science." It was written in Latin, which in that 
day was the language of science. He was the martyr as well as the 
father of experimental science ; for while riding one very cold 
day in the spring of 1626, he bought a fowl, and stuffed it with snow 
to see if the flesh could be preserved by snow as well as by salt. He 
became chilled, and finally so much indisposed that he could not 
return home, but was taken to the house of a friend where he died 
in a few days. In the last letter he wrote, he mentions that the 
experiment succeeded " excellently well." In his will he says : "My 
name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own 
country after some time is passed over." See Macaulay's essay,. 
Lord Bacon ; Life and Letters of Bacon, by James Spedding ; and 
Personal History of Lord Bacon, by W. H. Dixon. 

Character and Criticism. — His even temper, his flowing courtesy, 
the general respectability of his demeanor, made a favorable impres- 
sion on those who saw him in situations which do not severely try 
the principles. His faults were — we write it with pain — coldness 
of heart and meanness of spirit. He seems to have been incapable of 
feeling strong affection, of facing great dangers, of making great sac- 
rifices. His desires were set on things below. . . . Had his life 
been passed in literary retirement, he would in all probability, have 
deserved to be considered, not only as a great philosopher, but as a 
worthy and good-natured member of society. But neither his prin- 
ciples nor his spirits were such as could be trusted, when strong 
temptations were to be resisted, and serious dangers to be braved. 

Macaui,ay. 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 309 

Find the following selections in Bacon's Essays : 

Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and can 
not last, and, for the most part, it makes a dissolute youth, and an 
age a little out of countenance ; but yet certainly again, if it light 
well, it maketh virtue shine and vice blush. — Of Beauty. 

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their 
•chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is 
in discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of 
business. . . . Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe 
and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and 
consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and 
some few to be chewed and digested — that is, some books are to be 
read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ; and some 
few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention. . . 
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an 
exact man. . . . Histories make men wise ; poets, witty ; the 
mathematics, subtle ; natural philosophy, deep ; moral, grave ; logic 
and rhetoric, able to contend. — Of Studies. 

Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient 
saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are 
preserved and reposed. — Libraries. 

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage- 
ground of truth. — Of Truth. 

Literary Gleaning. — Quote what Addison and Pope say of 
Bacon. Give a sketch of Bacon's life. What does Macaulay say of 
Bacon ? Have you read Macaulay's Essay on Bacon ? Quote fine 
passage's from Bacon's Essays. 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 

Ben Jonson ( 1574-1637 ). Dramatist. A dignified, vigorous writer 
who, in his day, was regarded more highly than Shakespeare. Author 
of Every Man in His Humor, Every Man Out of His Humor, The 
Sad Shepherd, etc. See Whipple's Essays and Reviews. 

Christopher Marlowe (1563-1593). The greatest dramatist before 
Shakespeare. He was a master of blank verse and his Tamburlaine 
is the first blank verse play acted. The influence of Marlowe is seen 
in some of Shakespeare's plays, his Jew being a prototype of Shylock. 
Author of Jew of Malta, Faustus, Edward II, etc. See Whipple's 
Essays and Reviews, and Lowell's Old Eng. Dramatists. 



310 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Francis Beaumont (1586-1615) and John Fletcher (1576-1625). Lived 
together ten years and wrote fifty-two dramas. Among these dramas 
are Philaster and the Maid's Tragedy. After Beaumont's death 
Fletcher wrote three tragedies and nine comedies. Among the best 
are the Spanish Curate and Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. See 
Lowell's Old Eng. Dramatists and Whipple's Essays and Reviews, 

Philip Massinger (1584-1640). Dramatist. Author of A New 
Way to Pay Old Debts, Virgin Martyr, Bondman, Fatal Dowry, City 
Madam, etc. See Lowell's Old Eng. Dramatists and Whipple's 
Essays and Reviews. 

John Ford ( 1586-1639 ). A writer of powerful but morbid dramas. 
His best works are The Broken Heart and Love's Sacrifice. See 
Lowell's Old Eng. Dramatists, Whipple's Essays a?id Reviews, and 
Swinburne's Essays and Studies. 

John Webster (1582-1638). Dramatist. Author of Duchess of 
Malfy, The White Devil, Guise, etc. See Lowell's Old Eng. Dram- 
atists, and Whipple's Essays and Reviews. 

Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (1536-1608). Poet. He con- 
tributed his Induction and Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham 
to the Mirror for Magistrates. Co-author with Norton of the tragedy 
of Ferrex and Porrex. 

Robert Southwell (1560-1595). Poet. Author of St. Peter's Com- 
plaint, The Burning Babe, etc. See Ward's Eng. Poets. 

Samuel Daniel (1562-1619). Poet and historian. A friend of 
Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Chapman. Author of History of the Civil 
Wars Between York and Lancaster, Musophilus, etc. 

Michael Drayton (1563-1631). Poet. Author of Polyolbion, a 
poetical description of England, The Baron's Wars, The Court of 
the Faerie, etc. See Ward's Eng. Poets. 

George Herbert (1593-1632). Clergyman and poet. Spoken of as 
"holy George Herbert." Author of The Temple, a collection of 
poems, and the Country Parson, a prose work. See Life of Herbert, 
by Duyckinck. 

Sweet day ! so cool, so calm so bright — 
The bridal of the earth and sky; 
The dews shall weep thy fall to-night; 
For thou must die. — Virtue. 

Roger Ascham (1515-1568). Tutor of Queen Elizabeth and Lady 
Jane Grey. Author of The Schoolmaster and Toxophilus. 

Sir Philip Sidney ( 1554-1586 ). Author of Arcadia and the Defense 
of Poesie, in prose, and a number of sonnets. He was a gallant sol- 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 311 

dier and a courteous gentlemau, and a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. 
See Ward's Eng, Poets and Life of Sidney by Fox-Bourne. 

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618). A favorite of Queen Elizabeth, 
but beheaded by James I. Author of a History of the World and 
Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana. 
See Ward's Eng. Poets. 

Richard Hooker (1553-1600). Theologian. Author of Ecclesias- 
tical Polity, which " as a masterpiece of reasoning and eloquence is 
one of our greatest works." 

Robert Burton (1578-1640). Clergyman. Author of The Anatomy 
of Melancholy, of which Dr. Johnson said that it "was the only book 
that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished 
to rise." 

John Fox (1517-1587). Author of the famous Book of Martyrs. 
. John Knox (1505-1572). Scotch theologian. His chief work is 
History of the Reformation in Scotland. 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 

(1340-1400) 

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 

Precluded those melodious bursts that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 

With sounds that echo still. — Tennyson. 

I take increasing delight in Chaucer. . . . How exquisitely tender he is, 
yet how perfectly free he is from the least touch of sickly melancholy or morbid 
drooping. — Coleridge. 

Above all, he has an eye for character that seems to have caught at once 
not only its mental and physical features, but even its expression in variety of 
costume, — an eye, indeed, second only, if it should be called second in some re- 
spects, to that of Shakespeare. — Lowell. 

Besides the Canterbury Tales, upon which Chaucer's 
fame chiefly rests, the best known of his minor poems are 
The Complaint of Pitie, The Booke of the Dntchesse, The 
Assembly of Foules, The House of Fame, The Flower and 
the Leaf, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and 
Creseide. 

Biography. — Geoffrey Chaucer, the son of John Chaucer a Lon- 
don wine merchant, was born in London, about the year 1340. Of 



312 BRITISH AUTHORS 

his parentage, childhood, and schooldays our knowledge is very 
meager and fragmentary. It seems quite probable, however, that he 
spent some time at Cambridge or Oxford. In his boyhood he was 
page to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and later took part in a campaign 
in France, was taken prisoner and ransomed. He held several im- 
portant offices, and was sent on diplomatic missions. On a visit to 
Italy he is supposed to have met Petrarch and other noted men of 
that time. In 1367 he married Philippa, one of the ladies of the cham- 
ber to the queen, and sister to the wife of John of Gaunt. Chaucer died 
in London, October 25, 1400. His body was interred in Westmins- 
ter Abbey. He was the first of the illustrious poets whose ashes 
found a resting-place in what is now called the " Poets' Corner." See 
Longfellow's sonnet, Chaucer ; Lowell's Essay on Chaucer ; Ward's 
Life of Chaucer in Eng. Men of Letters ; Brown's Chaucer's Eng- 
land ; Pauli's Pictures of Old England ; Wright's History of Do- 
mestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle 
Ages, and Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry. Chaucer has been called 
"the Father of English poetry." "I consider Chaucer as a genial 
day in an English spring," says Thomas Wharton. 

" Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, 
On Fame's eternal bead-roll worthie to be fyled," 

writes Spenser. Lowell says : " He was one of those rare authors 
whom, if we had met him under a porch in a shower, we should 
have preferred to the rain." 

He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote 
The Canterbury Tales, and his old age 
Made beautiful with song; and as I read 

I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note 
Of lark and linnet, and from every page 
Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead. 

Longfellow: Chaucer. 



Note. — The Canterbury Tales are modeled after the Decameron of Boccaccio. 
The poet represents himself as about to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas 
a Becket in the Cathedral of Canterbury. Stopping at the Tabard Inn, he found 
many others about to make the same pilgrimage. At supper, Harry Bailey, the 
jolly and sociable host of the Tabard, proposed to act as guide to the company, 
and that, to enliven the journey, each person should relate two tales on the way 
out and two more on the return journey, and on the return of the company to 
London, he who had related the best story should sup at the common cost. Had 
the plan been carried out there would be one hundred and twenty-eight tales as 
there were thirty-two persons in the company, but there are only twenty-five, 



GEOFFREY/ CHAUCER 313 

Character and Criticism. — He had a very fine ear for the music 
<of verse, and the tale and the verse go together like voice and music. 
Indeed, so softly flowing and bright are they, that to read them is 
like listening in a meadow full of sunshine to a clear stream rippling 
over its bed of pebbles. The English in which they are written is 
almost the English of our time ; and it is literary English. 

Stopford Brooke. 

He has received his training from war, courts, business, travel — 
a training not of books, but of life. And it is life that he loves — the 
delicacy of its sentiment, the breadth of its farce, its laughter and its 
tears, the tenderness of its Griseldas, or the Smollett-like adventures 
of the miller and the school-boy. It is this largeness of heart, this 
wide tolerance, which enables him to reflect man for us as none but 
Shakespeare has ever reflected him, but to reflect him with a pathos, 
a shrewd sense and kindly humor, a freshness and joyousness of 
feeling, that even Shakespeare has not surpassed. 

Green's Short History of the English People. 

His best tales run on like one of our inland rivers, sometimes 
hastening a little and turning upon themselves in eddies that dimple 
without retarding the current ; sometimes loitering smoothly, while 
here and there a quiet thought, a tender feeling, a pleasant image, a 
golden-hearted verse, opens quietly as a water-lily, to float on the 
surface without breaking it into ripple. . . . He prattles inadvert- 
ently away, and all the while, like the princess in the story, lets fall 
a pearl at»every other word. It is such a piece of good luck to be 
natural! It is the good gift which the fairy godmother brings to 
Jher prime favorites in the cradle. ... If character may be divined 
from works, he was a good man, genial, sincere, hearty, temperate 
of mind, more wise, perhaps, for this world than the next, but 
thoroughly humane, and friendly with God and men. 

LowEiyi/ : Essay on Chaucer. 
Selections. 

Truth is the highest thing a man may keep. 

Canterbury Tales. 
The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere, 
Is to restreine, and kepen wel thy tonge. 

Canterbury Tales. 
Fly from the crowd, and be to virtue true, 

Content with what thou hast though it be small: 
To hoard brings hate ; nor lofty thoughts pursue : 
He who climbs high endangers many a fall. — Ballad. 



314 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Not one word spake he more than was need: 
All that he spake it was of high prudence, 
And short and quick, and full of great sentence ; 
Sounding in moral virtue was his speech, 
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach. 

Canterbury Tales. 
Literary Gleaning. — What do Tennyson, Coleridge, Lowell, 
Wharton, and Spenser say of Chaucer and his writings? Tell about 
The Canterbury Tales. Have you read Lowell's Essay on Chaucer 
and Longfellow's sonnet, Chaucer? Have you read Bulfinch's Age 
of Chivalry? Quote noble lines from Chaucer's writings. 



" Chaucer had been in his grave one hundred and fifty years ere 
England had secreted choice material enough for the making of 
another great poet," says Lowell. During this period, although 
there were no great writers, yet there were a few whose names still 
survive. 

James I. of Scotland ( 1394-1437). Author of The King's Quhair, 
which means the King's Quire or Book. The humorous poem, 
Christis Kirk on the Grene, was also written by him. 

William Dunbar (1465-1530). Scotch poet. Author of The Thistle 
and the Rose, The Golden Terge, etc. See Ward's Eng. Poets. 

Sir Thomas More (1480-1535). Statesman and philosopher. Au- 
thor of Utopia, a famous prose romance in which such a state of 
society is depicted as would bring contentment and happiness to all. 
He was beheaded by Henry VIII. See Life of More by Mackintosh 
and The Century of Sir Thomas More by B. O. Flower. 



•> 



CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 

William Langland (1332-1400). Author of The Vision of Piers 
Plowman, one of the most important English works written before 
the invention of printing. See edition by Wright, also Ward's Eng. 
Poets. 

John Gower (1325?- 1408). His principal works are the Speculum 
Meditautis, written in French but now lost, Vox Clamantis, written 
in Latin, and the Confessio Amantis, in English. Chaucer called him 
"moral Gower." 

John Barbour (1316?- 1396). Scotch poet and Archdeacon of 



THE CLASSICS 315 

Aberdeen. Author of The Bruce, an epic poem, valuable for the his- 
tory it contains as well as for literary merit. 

Sir John Mandeville (1300-1372). The first English prose writer. 
He studied medicine. Traveled for thirty-four years, and, on his re- 
turn, wrote an account of the countries visited, in which his memory 
was aided by his imagination. 

John Wycliffe ( 1324-1384 ). Distinguished as the first translator 
of the whole Bible and as an ecclesiastical reformer. He has been 
called " the morning star of the Reformation." 



THE CLASSICS 

For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man ? They 
are the oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most 
modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well 
omit to study Nature because she is old.— Thoreau : Walden. 

The stream of modern literature represented by the books and periodicals 
on the crowded counters is a turbulent and clamorous torrent, dashing along 
among the rocks of criticism, over the pebbles of the world's daily events ; try- 
ing to make itself seen and heard amidst the hoarse cries of the politicians and 
the rumbling wheels of traffic. The classic is a still lakelet, a mountain tarn, 
fed by springs that never fail, its surface never ruffled by storms, — always the 
same, always smiling a welcome to its visitor. — Holmes : Over the Teacups. 

Concerning the classics, Lowell says in his Essay on 
Spenser : ' ' But a classic is properly a book which main- 
tains itself by virtue of that happy coalescence of matter 
and style, that innate and exquisite sympathy between the 
thought that gives life and the form that consents to every 
mood of grace and dignity, which can be simple without 
being vulgar, elevated without being distant, and which is 
something neither ancient nor modern, always new and in- 
capable of growing old." The men and women now in 
middle life never grow weary in praising the old school- 
readers (McGuffey's) by which they were first touched by 
the awakening and uplifting power of "thoughts that 
breathe and words that burn." In one of his eloquent ser- 
mons Prof. Swing says : ' ' When any of you old persons 
look back at the early education of life, you perceive at 



316 THE CLASSICS 

once that your best notions did not come by way of the 
arithmetic or the geography, but from what books of moral 
and of high purpose may have fallen into your young hands. 
. The memory that does come up from those far 
away pages is full of the best wisdom of time or of the time- 
less land. In those books we were indeed led by a school- 
master from beautiful maxims for children up to the best 
thoughts of a long line of sages, and poets, and naturalists. 
There we all first learned the awful weakness of the duel 
that took away a Hamilton ; there we saw the grandeur of 
the ' Blind Preacher ' of William Wirt ; there we saw the 
emptiness of the ambition of Alexander, and there we heard 
even the infidel say, ' Socrates died like a philosopher, but 
Jesus Christ like a God.' " Pitt, Burke, Webster, Everett, 
and Patrick Henry, Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, Gold- 
smith, Gray, Cowper, Bryant, Irving, L,ongfellow, and Haw- 
thorne, Macaulay, Milton, Shakespeare, and best of all the 
Bible poured their choicest treasures into the hearts and 
lives of the school children of those bygone days. How un- 
forgetable are such lines as the following : 

"Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire," " Breathes there a 
man with soul so dead," "On Linden when the sun was low," "There 
is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and there 
they will remain forever," 

" At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk was dreaming of the hour," 

" Let all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy country's, thy God's and 
truth's," " He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth : He toucheth 
the hills, and they smoke," " O Lord, how manifold are thy works ! 
in wisdom hast thou made them all : the earth is full of thy riches." 

Away with all the childish children's books, all silly 
school-readers, and all that literature that aims simply to 
amuse and entertain by appealing to a lower range of senti- 
ments and feelings! If we are to have lofty-minded, heroic 



317 



men and women in the future as we have had in the past, 
we must teach the boys and girls to admire nobly, to love 
the true, the beautiful, and the good; and this can best be 
done by teaching them to feed upon and enjoy the soul- 
inspiring, life-giving classics. 

Note. — For lists of best books for children and young people, 
see Irish's Treasured Thoughts, Miss M. B. Burt's Literary Land- 
marks, and Baldwin's The Book-Lover. Some of the best poems for 
use in the school and the home are Bryant's Snow-Shower, The 
Rivulet, To a Waterfowl, The Death of the Flowers, The Fringed 
Gentian, A Rain-Dream, Robert of Lincoln, and A Lifetime ; Long- 
fellow's Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz, The Children's Hour, The Day 
is Done, From My Arm-Chair, Psalm of Life, The Reaper and the 
Flowers, The Village Blacksmith, The Rainy Day, Maidenhood, The 
Bridge, The Old Clock on the Stairs, The Arrow and the Song, The 
Builders, The Ladder of St. Augustine, Children, Paul Revere's 
Ride ; Whittier's The Barefoot Boy, At School-Close, In School-Days > 
Telling the Bees, Red Riding-Hood, The Frost Spirit, The Angel 
of Patience, Barbara Frietchie, A Song of Harvest, The Corn-Song; 
Lowell's Longing, The Changeling, The Fatherland, The Heritage, 
The First Stiow-Fall, Aladdin ; Tennyson's The Brook, Break, break, 
break, The May Queen, The Death of the Old Year. 

Literary Gleaning.— What do Holmes and Thoreau say about 
the classics? Quote Lowell's definition of a classic. What does 
Prof. Swing say of the old school-readers ? What does J. R. Miller 
say about " life "? Have you read Scott's Marmion and Lady of the 
Lake, Campbell's Hohenlinden, Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, Webster's 
Reply to Hayne, Shakespeare's Henry VLLL., and Psalm 104 f 



Ivife is a building. It rises slowly, day by day, through the years. Every 
new lesson we learn lays a block on the edifice which is rising silently within 
us. Every experience, every touch of another life on ours, every influence that 
impresses us, every book we read, every conversation we have, every act of our 
commonest days, adds to the invisible building.— J. R. Miller. 



THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC 

He will find one English book and one only, where as in the Iliad itself, 
perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness ; and that book is 
the Bible. — Matthew Arnold: On Translating Homer. 

There is, as you must have heard Wordsworth point out, a language of 
pure, intelligible English, which was spoken in Chaucer's time, and is spoken 
in ours; equally understood then and now; and of which the Bible is the written 
and permanent standard, as it has undoubtedly been the great means of pre- 
serving it. — Southey. 

No other writers speak to us with the authority of those whose ordinary 
speech was that of our translation of the Scriptures ; to no modern is that frank 
unconsciousness possible which was natural to a period when yet reviews were 
not ; and no later style breathes that country charm characteristic of days ere 
the metropolis had drawn all literary activity to itself, and the trampling feet 
of the multitude had banished the lark and the daisy from the fresh privacies 
of language. Truly, as compared with the present, these old voices seem to 
•come from the morning fields and not the paved thoroughfares of thought. 

Lowell: Library of Old Authors. 

The Bible, the greatest and best of all literary works, 
is not simply a book. It is a wonderful library of sixty-six 
books. These books were written by about forty different 
authors — men of various countries and conditions of life — 
and there is a period of sixteen hundred years between the 
writing of the first book and the last. The Bible has two 
general divisions — the Old Testament (thirty-nine books), 
the New Testament ( twenty-seven books ) . The Old Testa- 
ment has three divisions — History (seventeen books) , Poetry 
(five books), and Prophecy (seventeen books). The New 
Testament has four divisions — Biography, or the Gospels 
(four books), History, or the Acts of the Apostles (one 
book), Books of Discipline, or Letters (twenty-one books), 
and Revelation (one book). These seven divisions of the 
Bible are beautifully typefied by the seven lamps of the 
golden candlestick. 

In his eloquent plea that the Bible shall take its place 
in our schools and colleges by the side of the other classics, 
Professor Moulton says in part: •" It is one of the curiosi- 
ties of our civilization that we are content to go for our lib- 



i 



THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC 319 

eral education to literatures which, morally, are at an oppo- 
site pole from ourselves : literatures in which the most ex- 
alted tone is often an apotheosis of the sensuous, which de- 
grade divinity, not only to the human level, but to the low- 
est level of humanity. . . . We seek to form a charac- 
ter in which delicacy and reserve shall be supreme, and at 
the same time are training our taste in literatures which, if 
published as English books, would be seized by the police. 
. . It is surely good that our youth, during the forma- 
tive period, should have displayed to them, in a literary 
dress as brilliant as that of Greek literature — in lyrics 
which Pindar cannot surpass, in rhetoric as forcible as that 
of Demosthenes, or contemplative prose not inferior to 
Plato's — a people dominated by an utter passion for right- 
eousness, a people whom ideas of purity, of infinite good, of 
universal order, of faith in the irresistible downfall of all 
moral evil moved to a poetic passion as fervid, and speech 
as musical,* as when Sappho sang of love or iEschylus thun- 
dered his deep notes of destiny."* 

To appreciate and enjoy the best authors one must have 
a familiar knowledge of the Bible, as the writings of Shakes- 
peare, Milton, Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Ruskin, Words- 
worth, Longfellow, W T hittier, Lowell, and nearly all the 
best writers abound in Scriptural quotations and allusions. 
Professor Albert S. Cook says: " It would be worth while 
to read the Bible carefully and repeatedly, if only as a key 



-Preface to Literary Study of the Bible. 

If you would help a man upward by your show of sympathy with him, it 
must be sympathy with his higher instincts and efforts, not with his lower. You 
may safely exhibit charity toward him in his faults and failures, and tenderness 
in the treatment of his weakness and indecision ; but, unless he sees that you ob- 
viously have a higher standard than he conforms to, you cannot inspire him to 
strive to be like you at your best. No greater mistake can be made than in 
thinking that you are likely to be of moral service to a man by sharing with 
him an indulgence in appetites, occupations, or amusements, that he counts 
among his vices, or his least commendable propensities. — H. Clay Trumbull. 



320 THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC 

to modern culture, for to those who are unfamiliar with its 
teachings and diction all that is best in the English litera- 
ture of the present century is as a sealed book." Of that 
wonderful drama, the book of Job, Carlyle says: "There 
is nothing, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal merit." 
' ' All the wonders of Greek civilization heaped together are 
less wonderful than is the simple book of Psalms — the his- 
tory of the human soul in relation to its Maker," says Glad- 
stone. Coleridge called the book of Proverbs the best 
statesman's manual ever written. "This is the most in- 
structive, impressive, touching autobiography ever writ- 
ten," says Dr. Peabody, speaking of the book of Ecclesiastes. 
It is thought that Wordsworth was inspired to write his 
Ode to Immortality by reading the fifteenth chapter of First 
Corinthians, and a club of skeptics to whom Dr. Johnson 
read the book of Ruth agreed with Goethe in pronouncing 
it the most beautiful book ever written. Milton says: 
' ' There are no songs to be compared with the songs of Zion, 
no orations equal to those of the prophets, no politics like 
those which the Scriptures teach." Sir William Jones sums 
it all up in the following beautiful eulogy : ' ' The Scrip- 
tures contain, independently of a divine origin, more true 
sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more im- 
portant history, and finer strains both of poetry and elo- 
quence, than could be collected, within the same compass, 
from all other books that were ever composed in any age or 
in any idiom." 

The Bible and Its Teachings.* — Hawthorne was a diligent reader 
of the Bible, and when sometimes, in my ignorant way, I would 
question, in a proof-sheet, his use of a word, he would almost always 

*See "Praise of the Bible" in Irish's Treasured Thoughts, pages 139-41. 



THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC 321 

refer me to the Bible as his authority. It was a great pleasure to 
hear him talk about the Book of Job, and his voice would be tremu- 
lous with feeling, as he sometimes quoted a touching passage from 
the New Testament. — Fields: Yesterdays With Authors. 

I account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philos- 
ophy.— Sir Isaac Newton. 

Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of our liberties; write 
its precepts on your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the 
influence of this book we are indebted for the progress made in true 
civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future. 

U. S. Grant. 

To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I should need to 
send him to no other book than the New Testament. — John Locke. 

I know the Bible is inspired, because it finds me at greater 
depths of my being than any other book. — Coeeridge. 

I have read the Bible morning, noon, and night, and have ever 
since been the happier and better man for such reading. — Burke. 

I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal 
of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and 
better husbands. — Thomas Jefferson. 

By the study of what other book could children be so much 
humanized, and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical 
procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the 
interval between two eternities; and earns the blessings or the 
curses of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, 
even as they also are earning their payment for their work ! 

HuxeEY. 

I confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me 
with admiration, as the purity of the gospel has its influence on my 
heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of 
diction ; how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the 
Scripture ! — Rousseau. 

It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to 
atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to 
religion. — Bacon. 

There is an ash-tree growing here that my mother planted with 
her own hands, at three score and ten. What agnostic folly to think 
that that tree has outlived her who planted it! — Whittier. 



322 THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC 

When the microscopic search of skepticism which has hunted 
the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of the 
Creator, has turned its attention to human society, and has found a 
place on this planet ten miles square where a decent man can live 
in comfort and security, supporting and educating his children 
unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy 
nourished, manhood respected, and womanhood honored — when 
skeptics can find such a place where the gospel of Christ has not 
gone and cleared the way, and laid the foundations, and made 
decency and security possible, it will then be in order for champions 
of skepticism to move thither and ventilate their views. But so 
loug as these men are dependent upon the religion which they 
discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate a little 
before they seek to rob the Christian of his hope and humanity of 
its faith in that Saviour who alone has given to man that hope of 
life eternal which makes life tolerable and society possible, and robs 
death of its terrors, and the grave of its gloom. 

James Russeix Lowei^e. 

References. — A Teacher's Bible with references, maps, etc. Moul- 
ton's Literary Study of the Bible, Cook's The Bible and English 
Prose Style, Gladstone's The Impregnable Rock, Matthew Arnold's 
Preface to The Great Prophecy of Israel's Restoration, Monser's 
Masterpieces of Many Minds, Lowber's Cultura, The Bible in Tenny- 
son in Van Dyke's The Poetry of Tennyson, Holland's The Infallible 
Book in Gold-Foil, and the poems, Mrs. Alexander's Burial of Moses 
and N. P. Willis's fephthah's Daughter, The Widow of Nain, Absa- 
lom, etc. 

Explain the Scriptural allusions and quotations in the follow- 
ing selections : 

1. He smote the rock of national resources, and abundant 
streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of 
public credit, and it sprang upon its feet. — Webster. 

2. May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. 

Webster: Reply to Hayne. 

3. Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God; 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes. 

Mrs. Browning. 

4. Kissed his master, 

And cried, "All hail!" when he meant all harm. 

Shakespeare. 



THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC 323 



5. Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling 

Rebecca and Isaac. — LoNGEEEEOW. 

6. We need not pray over the Pharisee's prayer, 
Nor claim that our wisdom is Benjamin's share. 

Whittier. 

7. For what are they all in their high conceit 

When man in the bush with God may meet? — Emerson. 

8. Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

We Sinais climb and know it not. — LowEEE. 

"9. Some flow'rets of Eden ye still inherit, 

But the trail of the Serpent is over them all ! — Moore. 

10. The conscious water saw its God and blushed. — Crashaw. 

11. From Tennyson : 

" My sin was as a thorn 
Among the thorns that girt Thy brow." 

• " As manna on my wilderness." 

" Late he learned humility 
Perforce, like those whom Gideon schooled with briers." 

" A little lower than the angels." 

" Common clay taken from the common earth 
Moulded by God." 

" And oft some brainless devil enters in 
And drives them to the deep." 

" As power and might 
Abode in Samson's hair." 

" The wilderness shall blossom as the rose." 

" Thy leaf shall never fail." 

"Joshua's moon in Ajalon." 

" A heart as rough as Esau's hand." 

" Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord." 

" For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine." 

" A land of promise flowing with milk 
And honey of delicious memories." 



324 • THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC 

Find the following selections in the Bible and tell what 
gave rise to the thought : 

1. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her 
heart. 

2. Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following 
after thee : for whither thou goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, 
I will lodge : thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. 

3. Be strong and of a good courage ; be not afraid, neither be 
thou dismayed : for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever 
thou goest. 

4. And let us not be weary in well doing : for in due season we 
shall reap if we faint not. 

5. For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain 
his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. 

6. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the 
issues of life. 

7. Be not deceived: God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap. 

8. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white rai- 
ment ; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I 
will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. 

9. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that 
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good 
tidings of good, that publisheth salvation ; that saith unto Zion, Thy 
God reigneth ! 

10. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowl- 
edge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways 
past finding out ! 

Note. — For some of the noblest literature of the Bible, read 
the book of Ruth, David's lament over Saul and Jonathan ( II. Sam. 1 : 
19-27 ), Job ( Chap. 39-42), Psalms (1, 8, 19, 23, 24, 90, 103, 104, 119, 137), 
Proverbs (3, 4, 8, 22), Ecclesiastes (11, 12), Isaiah (52, 53, 55), Ser- 
mon on the Mount (Matt, Chap. 5-7), Acts (20:21-38), I. Corinthians 
(Chap. 13 and 15), Revelation (Chap. 21, 22 ). For the highest ethical 
teachings in any literature, see the Sermon on the Mount, John's Gos- 
pel, Galatians (5:22, 23),Philippians (4:8), II. Peter (1 : 3-7), and the 
Epistle of James. The first fable in history, seven hundred years be- 
fore ^Esop, (Judges 9:7-15). The eleventh chapter of Hebrews has 



t 

HELPFUL THOUGHTS 325 



been called the Westminster Abbey of the Bible. The key-word of 
the book of Hebrews is the word " better." For the " golden rule," 
see (Matt. 7:12); the "royal law," (James 2:8). For choice selec- 
tions from the Bible, see Irish's Treasured Thoughts (pages 19-22). 

Literary Gleaning. — What do Lowell, Southey, and Matthew 
Arnold say of the Bible as a Classic ? Tell of the Bible and its seven 
divisions. What does Professor Moulton say about the Bible and 
other classics? What does Professor Cook say about reading the 
Bible? Quote the words of Carlyle, Gladstone, Milton, and Sir Wil- 
liam Jones. What do Newton, Grant, Locke, Coleridge, Burke, Jeffer- 
son, Whittier, Huxley, and Rousseau say concerning the Bible and its 
teachings? Tell about Hawthorne and the Bible, and quote Lowell's 
reply to infidels. Using your Teacher's Bible, tell about David and 
Jonathan, Elijah and the ravens, Elijah's mantle, Samson's riddle, 
Jonah's gourd, the handwriting on the wall, Agur's prayer, Gideon's 
army (300 men), Jacob's ladder, Jacob's well, Joseph's dream, Aaron's 
rod, water changed to wine, loaves and fishes, grapes of Eshcol, 
Cain's question, holy of holies, Mizpah, Gethsemane, Galilee, Sinai, 
ark of the covenant, the princess and the ark of bulrushes, Patmos, 
Bethesda, Siloam, Bethany, Philistines, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Noah's 
ark, Rebecca at the well. 

Tell about the following Bible characters : Absalom, Daniel, De- 
borah, Miriam, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Jezebel, Esther, Rutti, 
Naomi, Nathaniel, Zacchaeus, Judas, Eutychus, Herod, Pilate, Rhoda, 
Agrippa, Peter, Paul, Naaman, Haman, John, the Marys. 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS 

1. 'Tis the mind that makes the body rich.— Shakespeare. 

2. The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue.— Cowper. 

3. Self-conquest is the greatest of all victories.— Plato. 

4. Perish discretion when it interferes with duty. — Hannah More. 

5. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts. 

Sidney. 

6. Earnestness alone makes life eternity.— Carlyle. 

7. The noblest mind the best contentment has.— Spenser. 

8. The pen is mightier than the sword.— Bulwer-L,ytton. 

9. Education is the cheap defense of nations.— Burke. 

10. The advantage of living does not consist in length of days, but in the right 
employment of them.— Montaigne. 



326 HELPFUL THOUGHTS 

11. In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves for a bright manhood, there 

is no such word as fail. — Bulwer-Lytton. 

12. When thou feelest a disposition to sin, seek a place where God cannot see 

thee — Lokman. 

13. Sunday is the golden clasp which binds together the volume of the week. 

V LONGFELLOW. 

14. The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, 

Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers. — Wordsworth. 

15. To live in hearts we leave behind, 

Is not to die.— Campbell. 

16. It is better to inspire the heart with a noble sentiment than to teach the 

mind a truth of science.— Dr. Edward Brooks. 

17. It is well to think well. It is divine to act well.— Horace Mann. 

18. It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life 

worth looking at.— Holmes. 

19. Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choice of good or 

evil we have made through life. — Dr. Geikie. 

20. Evil is wrought by want of thought 
As well as want of heart.— Hood. 

21. Being all fashioned of the self-same dust, 

Let us be merciful as well as just! — Longfellow. 

22. The mind's the standard of the man.— Watt. 

23. Foster the beautiful, and every hour thou callest new flowers to birth. 

Schiller, 

24. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely, according to 

conscience, above all other liberties.— Milton. 

25. We sleep; but the loom of life never stops. — Beecher. 

26. Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflec- 

tion must finish him. — Locke. 

27. No power can die that ever wrought for truth.— Lowell. 

28. A handful of good life is worth a bushel of learning.— George Herbert. 

29. To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. 

Edmund Burke. 

30. No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 

31. A lie has no legs and cannot stand ; but it has wings and can fly far and 

wide.— Bishop Warburton. 

32. The diminutive chains of habit are seldom heavy enough to be felt till they 

are too strong to be broken.— Samuel Johnson. 

33. Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul 

into.— Beecher. 

34. Be not simply good; be good for something.— Thoreau. 

35. Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together. 

Goethe. 

36. Men are but children of a larger growth.— Dryden. 

37. You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, 

But the scent of the roses will cling round it still.— Moore. " 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS 327 



38. Heaven lies about us in our infancy. — Wordsworth. 

39. There is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, sincere earnestness. 

Dickens. 

40. I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.— Ruskin. 

41. If you would learn the value of money, go and try to borrow some, for he 

that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing. — Franklin. 

42. Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sun- 

beam.— Milton. 

43. In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is 

simplicity. — Longfellow. 

44. Honesty is the best policy; but he who acts on that principle is not an 

honest man.— Whately. 

45. Meffhod is the hinge of business, and there is no method without order 

and punctuality.— Hannah More. 

46. A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one ; no more 

right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down. 

Dr. Johnson. 

47. Wit loses its respect with the good, when seen in company with malice; 

and to smile at the jest that plants a thorn in another's breast, is to 
become a principal in the mischief— Sheridan. 

48. Not a truth has to art or to science been given, 

But brows have ached for it, and souls toil'd and striven. 

Owen Meredith. 

49. There are two ways of being happy, — we may either diminish our wants 

or increase our means : either will do — the result is the same. 

Franklin. 

50. Men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. — Tennyson. 

51. If your eye is on the eternal, your intellect will grow, and your opin- 

ions and actions will have a beauty which no learning or combined 
advantages of other men can rival.— Emerson. 

52. L/et us be content, in work, 

To do the thing we can, and not presume 
To fret because it 's little. — Mrs. Browning. 

53. God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal 

prayers. — William Penn. 

54. True dignity abides with him alone 

Who, in the patient hour of silent thought, 

Can still respect and still revere himself— Wordsworth. 

55. Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God.— Mrs. OSGOOD. 

56. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable 

in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.— Bible. 



AUTHORS' BIRTHDAYS* 



Charles Sumner ( January 

Bayard Taylor " 

Daniel Webster " 

Edgar Allan Poe " 

Lord Byron , " 

Robert Burns 

Charles Dickens February 

John Ruskin " 

James Russell Lowell " 

Henry W. Longfellow " 

Mrs. E. B. Browning March 

T. Buchanan Read " 

Washington Irving . April 

W. E. Channing 

William Wordsworth " 

Edward Everett 

J. L. Motley 

Shakespeare " 

Alice Cary 

Addison May 

Horace Mann 

W. H. Prescott 

Robert Browning 

Pope " 

Emerson .... , 

Mrs. Stowe June 

Hawthorne July 

Thoreau .- 

Thackeray 

J. G. Holland 

Percy Bysshe Shelley August 

Tennyson " 

Dryden " 

Scott 

Holmes 



6 


1811. 


11 


1825. 


18 


1782. 


19 


1809. 


22 


1788. 


25 


1759. 


7 


1812. 


8 


1819. 


22 


1819. 


27 


1807. 


6 


1806. 


12 


1822. 


3 


1783. 


7 


1780. 


7 


1770. 


11 


1794. 


15 


1814. 


28 


1564. 


20 


1820. 


1 


1672. 


4 


1796. 


4 


1796. 


7 


1812. 


21 


1688. 


25 


1803. 


14 


1812. 


4 


1804. 


12 


1817. 


18 


1811. 


24 


1819. 


4 


1792. 


6 


1809. 


9 


1631. 


15 


1771. 


29, 


1809. 



*For programs and suggestions for the celebration of the birthdays of 
leading American authors, see Riverside literature Series, " Extra Number A," 
price 15 cts. 



POETS LAUREATE 329 

Phoebe Cary September 4, 1824. 

James Fenimore Cooper " 15, 1789. 

Francis Parkman " 16, 1823. 

Samuel Johnson " 18, 1709. 

George Bancroft -. October 3, 1800. 

S.T.Coleridge ...... " 20,1772. 

T. B. Macaulay " 25, 1800. 

W. C. Bryant November 3, 1794. 

Oliver Goldsmith " 14, 1728. 

William Cowper " 15,1731. 

George Eliot " 22, 1819. 

Wendell Phillips " 29, 1811. 

Thomas Carlyle . . . December 4, 1795. 

Milton " 9, 1608. 

Whittier " 17, 1807. 

Matthew Arnold " 24,1822. 

Thomas Gray " 26, 1716. 

Gladstone " 29,1809. 



■ *>**< 

POETS LAUREATE 

Edmund Spenser. 1591-1599 

Samuel Daniel 1599-1619 

Ben Jonson 1619-1637 

(interregnum) 

William Davenant 1660-1668 

John Dryden 1670-1689 

Thomas Shadwell , 1689-1692 

Nahum Tate 1692-1715 

Nicholas Rowe 1715-1718 

Lawrence Eusden 1718-1730 

Colley Cribber 1730-1757 

William Whitehead 1757-1785 

Thomas Wharton 1785-1790 

Henry James Pye 1790-1813 

Robert Southey 1813-1843 

William Wordsworth 1843-1850 

Alfred Tennyson 1850-1892 

Alfred Austin 1895- 



330 BRITISH AUTHORS 

ADDITIONAL NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH 
AUTHORS 

Adams, Mrs. Sarah. 1805-1848. Author of the hymn, Nearer, 
my God, to Thee. 

Alexander, Mrs. Cecil F. 1830 . Author of the poem, The 

Burial of Moses. 

Arnold. Edwin. 1832 . Author of The Light of Asia, Poti- 

phar's Wife, Lotos and Jewel, Secret of Death and Other Poems, 
Griselda, The Lndian Song of Songs, etc. 

Arnold. Thomas. 1795-1842. Noted educator. Head Master of 
Rugby. Author of Hist of Rome, etc. 

Austen, Jane. 1775-1817. Author of the novels, Pride and 
Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Emma, etc. 

Austin, Alfred. 1835 . Poet Laureate. Author of The Season,, 

The Human Tragedy, The Golden Age, Lnierludes, Rome or Death, 
Madonna 's Child, The Tower of Babel, Savanarola, English Lyrics, 
etc. Also three novels. 

Bailey, Philip James. 1816 . Poet. Author of Festus, The 

Age, etc. 

Baillie, Joanna. 1762-1851. Scotch dramatist. Author of Plays 
on the Passions, De Montfort, etc. Has been called "the female 
Shakespeare." 

Barrie, J. M. 1860 . His stories of Scotch life include 

Auld Licht Ldylls, A Window in Thrums, The Little Minister, 
When a Man's Single, etc. See Ladies' Home Journal, Oct., 1894. 

Bayly, Ada Ellen. "Edna Lyall." 18 . Author of the novels, 

Donavan, We Two, Knight Errant, etc. 

Besant, Walter. 1838 . Author of the novels, All Sorts and 

Conditions of Men, The Revolt of Man, The Rebel Queen, etc. 
Knighted by the Queen. See Rice. 

Black, Wm. 1841 . Author of the novels, A Princess of 

Thule, A Sprig of White Heather, In Far Lochaber, Highland 
Cousins, Briseis, etc. 

Blackie, John Stuart. 1809-1895. Author of Self-Culture, trans- 
lations from the Greek, Latin, and German, several vols, of 
poems, etc. 

Blackmore, Richard D. 1825 . Novelist. Author of Lorna 

Doone, Alice Lorraine, Erema, etc. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH AUTHORS 331 

Bonar, Horatius. 1808-1889. Scotch poet. x\uthor of Hymns 
of Faith and Hope, etc. 

Bowring, Sir John. 1792-1872. Poet. Watchman, Tell us of the 
Night is the best known of his many beautiful hymns. 

Bradley, Edward. " Cuthbert Bede." 1827-1889. Humorist. Au- 
thor of The Adventures of Verdant Green, etc. 

Bronte, Charlotte. 1816-1855. Novelist. Author of fane Eyre, 
The Professor, Shirley, and Villette. Married Mr. Nicholls in 1854. 
Her sister Anne wrote Tenant of Wildfell Hall ; and Emily, another 
sister, wrote Wuthering Heights. See Charlotte Bronte, by T. W. 
Reid, and Life of C, B., by Mrs. Gaskell. 

Brooke, Stopford. 1832 . Author of Life of F. W. Robert- 
son, Theology in the Eng. Poets, Primer of Eng. Lit., etc. 

Brown, John. 1810-1882. Scotch physician. Author of Rab and 
His Friends, Marjorie Fleming, Locke and Sydenham. 

Bryce, James. 1838 . Historian. Author of Native Educa- 
tion in Lndia, The Holy Roman Empire, and American Common- 
wealth. 

Bulwer-Lytton. Sir Edward George. 1803-1873. Among his twenty- 
five novels are Kenelm Chillingly, My Novel, Harold, Zanoni, Last 
Days of Pompeii, Rienzi, etc. The Lady of Lyons, Richlieu, and 
Money are popular dramas. 

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Robert. " Owen Meredith." 1831-1891. Son 
of E. G. B.-U. Author of Lucile (a novel in verse), The Wanderer, 
Serbski Posme (a collection of the national songs of Servia), etc. 

Caine, Hall. 1852 . Author of The Manxman, The Deemster, 

CapVn Davy's Honeymoon, The Scapegoat, etc. 

Clarke, Chas. Cowden. 1787-1877. Author of Shakespeare Charac- 
ters, Riches of Chaucer, etc. 

Clarke, Mrs. Mary Cowden. 1809 . Wife of C. C. C. Author 

of Concordance of Shakespeare, World-Noted Women, and several 
vols, of poems. 

Cobbe, Francis Power. 1822 . Author of Lntuitive Morals, 

Darwinism in Morals, Duties of Women, etc. 

Collins, Wilkie. 1824-1889. As a novelist he excels in the con-" 
struction of plots. Author of The Woman in White, The Dead Se- 
cret, No Name, Armadale, The Moonstone, etc. 

Cook, Eliza. 1817-1889. Poet. Author of The Old Arm Chair, etc. 

Craik, Dinah M. [Mulock]. 1826-1887. Author of the novels, fohn 



332 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Halifax Gentleman, A Noble Life, A Life for a L,ife, etc. Of her 
poems, Philip my King and Douglas are the best. 

Crockett. S. R. 1859 . Author of Bog Myrtle and Peat, The 

Stickit Minister, The Lilac Sunbonnet, The Raiders, Cleg Kelly, etc. 

D'Arblay, Madame Frances [Burney]. 1752-1840. Author of. the 
novels, Evelina, Cecilia, etc. See Macaulay's Essays. 

Darwin, Chas. R. 1809-1882. A noted scientist, originator of the 
Evolution Theory. Author of Origin of Species, The Descent of 
Man, etc. 

Disraeli, Benj., Lord Beaconsfield. 1805-1881. He satirized the 
leading people of his time in his novels. Author of Vivian Gray, 
Coningsby, Lothair, Endymion, etc. 

Doyle, Conan. 1859 . Author of Round the Red Lamp, Mem- 
oirs of Sherlock Holmes, Micah Clarke, The White Company, A 
Study in Scarlet, etc. See Ladies' 1 Home Journal, Oct., 1894. 

Drummond, Henry. 1851-1897. Author of Tropical Africa, Natu- 
ral Law in the Spiritual World, The Ascent of Man, and the ad- 
dresses, The Greatest Thing in the World, The Perfected Life, etc. 

Edgeworth, Maria. 1767-1849. Author of The Barring Out, Castle 
Rackrent, and other novels, and many popular juvenile tales. 

Edwards, Amelia B. 1831-1892. Egyptologist. Author of the 
novels, Barbara's History, Brackenbury , etc. 

Fothergill, Jessie. 1856-1891. Novelist. Author of The First 
Violin, Kith and Kin, etc. 

Froude, James Anthony. 1818-1894. Historian and essayist. Author 
of History of England, The English in Lreland, Short Studies on 
Great Subjects, The Nemesis of Faith, etc. 

Gaskell, Mrs. Eliz. C. 1810-1865. Author of the novels, Sylvia's 
Lovers, Ruth, Cranford, etc. Also Life of Charlotte Bronte. 

Geikie, Cunningham. 1826 . Clergyman. Among his works 

are The Life and Words of Christ, Hours With the Bible, and Enter- 
ing o?i Life, an excellent book for young people. 

Gladstone, Wm. Ewart. 1809 . Statesman. Author oijuven- 

tus Mundi, The Vatican Decrees, The Lmpregnable Rock (a defense 
of the Bible), Homeric Studies, etc. See Life of, by Geo. Barnett 
Smith, and Harper's Mag, Apr., 1882. 

Gosse, Edmund W. 1849 . Poet and critic. Author of Viol 

and Flute, The Jacobean Poets, King Erik, Thomas Gray in Eng. 
Men of Letters, etc. 

Green, John R. 1837-1883. Historian. Author of The Making 
of England, Short Hist, of the Eng. People, etc. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH AUTHORS 



Haliburton, Thos. C. 1796-1865. Nova Scotian humorist. Author 
of The Clockmaker or The Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick, etc. 
Hallam, Henry. 1777-1859. Author of History of the Middle 
Ages, Constitutional Hist, of Eng, etc. 

Hamerton, Philip G. 1834-1894. Art critic. Author of A Painter's 
Camp, The Unknown River, The Intellectual Life, etc. 

Hardy, Thos. 1840 . Author of the novels, Far from the 

Madding Crowd, Life's Little Ironies, Two on a Tower, Desperate 
Remedies, Tess of the D y Urbervilles, etc. 

Harrison, Frederick 1831 . Philosopher. Author of Order 

and Progress, The Meaning of History, etc. 

Haweis, Hugh R. 1838 . Author of Speech in Season, Poets 

in the Pulpit, Music and Morals, etc. 

Haweis, Mary E. [Joy]. 1852 . Wife of H. R. H. Author of 

Chaucer for Children, The Art of Dress, Beautiful Houses, etc. 

Hay, Mary Cecil. 1844-1886. Author of the novels, Old Myddle- 
ton's Money, The Arundel Motto, etc. 

Hemans. Felicia D. [Browne]. 1793-1835. Among her most familiar 
poems are Casablanca, Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, Graves of a 
Household, and He Never Smiled Again. 

Hughes, Thos. 1823-1896. Author of Tom Brown's School Days, 
Tom Brown at Oxford, Manliness of Christ, etc. 

Hunt, J. H. Leigh. 1784-1859. Author of essays, and the poems, 
Francesca da Rimini, Legend of Florence, Abou-Ben-Adhem, The 
Glove and the Lions, etc. See Autobiography edited by his son, A 
Shelf of Old Books, by Mrs. Fields, Macaulay's Essays, and the Cen- 
tury, March, 1882. 

Huxley, Thos. Henry. 1825-1895. Scientist. Author of Man's 
Place in Nature, Comparative Anatomy, Lay Sermons, etc. 

Jameson, Mrs. Anna. 1797-1860. Author of Characteristics of 
Women, Sacred and Lege?idary Art, Memoirs of Loves of the 
Poets, etc. 

Jerrold, Douglas W. 1803-1857. Humorist. His best dramas are 
Rent Day and Black-Eyed Susan. The Caudle Lectures and A Man 
Made of Money are the best known of his other writings. 

Kingsley, Chas. 1819-1875. Andromeda, The Fishers, The Last 
Buccaneer, Oh, That We Two Were Maying, The Sands o' Dee, and 
The Red King are some of his best known poems. Among his novels 
are Alton Locke, Yeast, Westward Ho, and Hypatia. Water Babies 
is a book for children. 

Knowles, James Sheridan. 1794-1862. Irish dramatist. Author 



334 BRITISH AUTHORS 

of Caius Graccus, Virginius, Leo the Gypsy, The Hunchback, Wil- 
liam Tell, etc. 

Landor, Walter Savage. 1775-1864. Author of the poems Gebir, 
Heroic Idyls, Hellenics, etc. He was a strong original prose writer. 
Imaginary Conversations is his best prose work. See Stedman's 
Victorian Poets and Lowell's Latest Literary Essays. 

Lecky, Wm. E. H. 1838 . Irish historian. Author of Hist. 

of Rationalism in Europe, Hist, of European Morals, Democracy 
and Liberty, etc. 

Lewes, Geo. Henry. 1817-1878. Author of Problems of Life and 
Mind, Life of Goethe, The Spanish Drama, etc. See J. W. Cross's 
Life of George Eliot. 

Livingstone, David. 1813-1873. African missionary. Author of 
Expedition to the Zambesi, Missionary Trials and Researches in 
South Africa, Last Journals, etc. 

Lover, Samuel. 1797-1868. Most popular song is Rory O'More. 
His best known novels are Handy Andy and Rory O 'More. 

MacDonald, Geo. 1824- . Scotch poet and novelist. Best 

poetry found in Phantasies. Among his novels are Marquis of Los- 
sie, Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Robert Falconer, St. George 
and St. Michael, etc. 

Mahoney. Francis. "Father Prout." 1805-1866. Best poem, The 
Bells of Shandon. 

Marryatt, Frederick. 1792-1849. Novels, Peter Simple, Jacob 
Faithful, Midshipman Easy, etc. 

Martineau, Harriet. 1802-1876. A strong, clear, original writer 
on miscellaneous subjects. Author of Deerbrook, The Hour arid the 
Man, novels. Also Society in America, Household Education, His- 
tory of the Thirty Years' 1 Peace, etc. See Autobiography. 

Martineau, James. 1805 . Bro. of H. M. Author of Studies 

of Christianity, Religious and Modern Materialism, Hymns of 
Praise and Prayer, etc. 

McCarthy, Justin. 1830 . Author of Hist, of Our Own 

Times, and the novels Linley Rochford, Dear Lady Disdain, etc. 

Meredith, Geo. 1828 . Author of Poems and Ballads, Poems 

and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth, etc. Also the novels, Rhoda Flem- 
ing, An Amazi?ig Marriage, Richard Fever el, Diana of the Cross- 
ways, etc. 

Milman, Henry Hart. 1791-1868. Historian. Author of History 
of the Jews, History of Latin Christianity, etc. 

Mitford, Mary Russell. 1786-1855. Among her tragedies are Julian, 



NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH AUTHORS 335 

Rienzi, and Foscari. A series of papers entitled Our Village is her 
best work. See Yesterdays with Authors, by J. T. Fields. 

Morris, Lewis. 1833 . Poetical writings, Songs Unsung, 

The Ode of Life, Songs of Two Worlds, etc. 

Morris, Wm. 1834-1896. His best poems are The Earthly 
Paradise, The Defence of Guinever, and The Story of Sigurd the 
Volsung. 

Muller. Friederick Max. 1823 . German Philologist. Prof. 

at Oxford. Author of Chips from a German Workshop, Science of 
Language, etc. 

Norton. Caroline Eliz. [Sheridan]. 1808-1877. Poet and novelist. 
Author of Stuart of Dunleith, English Laws for English Women 
of the Nineteenth Century, etc. Bin gen on the Rhine is her best 
known poem. 

Oliphant. Marg't 0. [Wilson]. Ranks high as a novelist. Author 
of Chronicles of Carlingford, Zaidee, Harry Joscelym, A Little 
Pilgrim, etc. Also Literary Hist, of England. 

O'Shaughnessy, Arthur W. E. 1844-1881. Author of the poems, 
An Epic of Women, Music and Moonlight, Lays of France, etc. 

Patmore, Coventry K. D. 1823 . Author of Angel in the 

House, Faithful Forever, and other vols, of poetry. The poem, My 
Little Son, is very beautiful. 

Piozzi, Hester [Lynch] (Thrale). Best known as Mrs. Thrale. 
Author of the poem, The Three Warnings. Also Anecdotes of Dr. 
fohnson, etc. 

Porter, Jane. 1776-1850. Author of the historical novels, Scot- 
tish Chiefs and Thaddeus of Warsaw. 

Proctor, Adelaide Ann. 1825-1864. Dau. of B. W. P. Author of 
several vols, of poetry. The Present, Because, and A Shadow are 
well known poems. 

Proctor, Bryan Waller. "Barry Cornwall." 1790-1874. Author 
of Mirandola, a tragedy, and several vols, of poetry. His English 
Songs contain many beautiful lyrics. See Stedman's Victorian 
Poets and Fields's Yesterdays With Authors. 

Reade, Chas. 1814-1884. Author of the novels, Put Yourself in 
His Place, Peg Woffington, Christie Johnstone, Hard Cash, Lt is 
Never too Late to Mend, The Cloister and the Hearth, etc. 

Rice, James. 1843-1882. Author with Walter Besant of The 
Seamy Side, Golden Butterfly, The Chaplain of the Fleet, etc. 

Ritchie, Anne I. [Thackeray]. 1842 . Dau. of W. M. T. 



336 BRITISH AUTHORS 

Author of Old Kensington, Village on the Cliff, and Tennyson 
Ruskin Browning, etc. 

Robertson, Frederick W. 1816-1853. One of the greatest preachers 
of his age. His sermons were published posthumously. See Life 
of, by Stopford Brooke. 

Rossetti, Christina Georgina. 1830-1894. Poet. Author of A Pa- 
geant and Other Poems, Sonnet of Sonnets, Passing and Glassing, etc. 

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. 1828-1882. Brother of C. G. R. Painter 
and poet. Author of a vol. of translations, The Early Italian Poets, 
and a vol. of poems. Some of his best poems are The Blessed 
Damozel, Troy Town, Eden Bower, The Stream's Secret, and Mary 
Magdalene. Ruskin says of him : " Rosetti was the chief intellec- 
tual force in the establishment of the modern romantic school in 
England." 

Schreiner, Olive. " Ralph Iron." 1862 . Married Mr. Cron- 

wright but kept her own name. Author of The Story of an African 
Farm, Dream Life and Real Life, etc. 

Seeley. John R. 1834 . Author of Ecce Homo, Lectures and 

Essays, Roman Imperialism, etc. 

Shairp. John Campbell. 1819-1885. Literary critic. Author of 
Aspects of Poetry, Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, Poetic In- 
terpretation of Nature, Burns in Eng. Men of Let., etc. 

Smiles, Samuel. 1816 . Author of Self Help, Thrift, Life 

of Geo. Stephenson, etc. 

Smith, Goldwin. 1823 . Author of Lectures and Essays, 

The Study of History, etc. 

Smith, Sarah. "Hesba Stretton." Author of the novels, Through 
a Needle's Eye, Bede's Charity, The Highway of Sorrow, etc. 

Smith, Sydney. 1771-1845. Clergyman and humorist. Author of 
Peter Plymlefs Letters and Letters to Archdeacon Singleton. See 
Duyckinck's Wit and Wisdom of Sydney Smith. 

Spencer, Herbert. 1820 . Author of Education, Study of 

Sociology, Data of Ethics, Principles of Ethics, etc. 

Stanley, Henry M. 1840 . African explorer. For many years 

a citizen of the U. S. Author of How I Found Livingstone, Through 
the Dark Continent, In Darkest Africa, The Congo and the Found- 
ing of its Free State, and My Dark Companions and their Strange 
Stories. 

Stevenson, Robert Louis. 1850-1894. Author of Dr. fekyll and 
Mr. Hyde, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, The Master of 



NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH AUTHORS 337 

Ballantrae, David Balfour, Treasure Island, etc. Also a vol. of 
poems for children, A Child's Garden of Verses. 

Strickland, Agnes. 1796-1874. Author of Lives of the Queens 
of England, Lives of the Queens of Scotland, etc. 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles. 1837 . Poet. Author of Ata- 

lanta, Songs Before Sunrise, Bothwell, The Tale of Balen, etc. 
Some of his finest poems are Tristram, Hymn to Proserpine, A 
Cameo, and Before Dawn. See Stedman's Victorian Poets and 
Lowell's IJt. Essays, Vol. II. 

Thornbury, Geo. Walter. 1828-1876. Poet and novelist. Author 
of Greatheart, True as Steel, etc., novels. Also IAfe of Turner^ 
Among his poems are The fester's Sermon, The Old Grenadier 's 
Story, and Three Troopers. 

Trollope, Anthony. 1815-1882. Among his novels are Barchester 
Towers, Doctor Thome, Framley Parsonage, Can You Forgive 
Her, etc. 

Ward, Mary Augusta [Arnold]. 1851 . Granddaughter of T. 

A. and niece of M. A. Wife of T. Humphry Ward. She is said to be 
the greatest living novelist. Author of Miss Bretherton, Robert 
Elsmere, David Grieve, Marcella, and The Story of Bessie Coslrell. 

Watson, John Maclaren. " Ian Maclaren." 1850 . Author 

of the Scottish stories, Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush and The Days 
of Auld Lang Syne. Also The Mind of the 1\ faster, a vol. of sermons. 

Weyman, Stanley J. 1855 . Author of the novels, The House 

of the Wolf, A Gentleman of France, My Lady Rotha, The Man in 
Black, etc. 

Wolf, Charles. 1791-1823. Irish poet. Best known as the author 
of the poem, The Burial of Sir John Moore. 

Wood, Ellen [Price]. 1820-1887. Wife of Henry Wood. East 
Lynne is her most famous novel. 



LITERARY RECREATIONS* 

(British Authors) 

Who wrote Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Tom Brown's School 
Days, Hypatia, The Cotter's Saturday Night, The Canterbury Tales, 
Characteristics of Women, Bingen on the Rhine, The Vision of Mirza, 
Lucile, The Cry of the Children, The Spanish Gypsy, Childe Harold, 
The Ancient Mariner, To a Skylark, Origin of Species, The Idyls of 
the King, Alexander's Feast, Last Days of Pompeii, Landing of the 
Pilgrim Fathers, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Short History of the 
English People, Intimations of Immortality, The Last Rose of Sum- 
mer, Festus, Richelieu, Gertrude of Wyoming, Gulliver's Travels, 
Songs of Seven, All Sorts and Conditions of Men, To Mary in 
Heaven, Scottish Chiefs, The Greatest Thing in the World, David 
Copperheld, Adam Bede, The Little Minister, The Old Arm Chair, 
The Caudle Lectures, Henry Esmond, The Princess, The Song of the 
Shirt, The Deserted Village, In Darkest Africa, John Gilpin, Essay on 
Man, A Princess of Thule, The Burial of Moses, The Burial of Sir 
John Moore, Lays of Ancient Rome, Sesame and Lilies, Ivanhoe, The 
Blessed Damozel, Entering on Life, Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush, 
Marcella, Heroes and Hero-Worship, My Heart Leaps, up, Ecce Homo, 
History of Our Own Times, Vanity Fair, Sohrab and Rustum, The 
Christinas Carol, Culture and Anarchy, Self Help, Manliness of 
Christ, The Cloister and the Hearth, Jane Eyre, Lady of the Lake, 
The Impregnable Rock, The Eve of St. Agnes, The Light of Asia, 
The Faery Queen, American Commonwealth, John Halifax, Tintern 
Abbey, Marmion, The Three Warnings, Utopia, Lycidas, Kenilworth, 
Robinson Crusoe, Paradise Lost? 

Tell about Mary Campbell, Emily Sellwood, Mary Arden, Mrs. 
Unwin, Charlotte Margaret Carpenter, Dorothy, Mary Hutchinson, 
Anne Hathaway, Jane Welsh, Philippa, Lady Austen, Aldworth, Bon- 
nie Doon, Craigenputtoch, BinfLeld, Gad's Hill, Twickenham, Rydal 
Mount, Elleray, New Place, Holland House, Grasmere, Abbottsford, 
Witley, Holly Lodge, Horton, Griff House, Casa Guidi, Brantwood, 
Pantisocracy, Boz, Clio, Barry Cornwall, Lake Poets. 

Where are the graves of Tennyson, Scott, Burns, Dryden, Mrs. 
Browning, Milton, Carlyle, Cowper, Shakespeare, Keats, Chaucer, 
Browning, George Eliot, Macaulay, Johnson, Dickens, Pope, Words- 
worth, Gray, Campbell, Addison, Goldsmith, Shelley, Spenser, Byron? 

-All these questions are answered in this book. 






LITERARY RECREATIONS 339 

Who was called the "Ayrshire ploughman," " the wicked wasp 
of Twickenham," " Shakespeare's daughter," "the great English let- 
ter-writer," "the apostle of culture," "the female Shakespeare," "the 
wizard of the North," "the father of experimental science," " the 
father of English poetry," "the Great Unknown," " the morning star 
of the Reformation," "the Shakespeare of theological literature"? 

Who wrote the following : " How use doth breed a habit in a 
man," "Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow," " 'Tis sweet 
to hear the watch-dog's honest bark," " So shall I join the choir in- 
visible," "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien," "To err is human; 
to forgive, divine," "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," "The thorns 
which I have reaped are of the tree I planted," " Thoughts that 
breathe and words that burn," " Coming events cast their shadows 
before," "To me the meanest flower that blows," " Kind hearts are 
more than coronets," " Like angel-visits, few and far between," " 'Tis 
heaven itself that points out an hereafter," " O'er wayward childhood 
wouldst thou hold firm rule," "Our deeds shall travel with us from 
afar," " Earth hath no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal," " God moves 
in a mysterious way," " None but the brave deserves the fair," "A 
light mocker is a mere fribble in soul," " Oh, that those lips had 
language," " Happy he with such a mother," " Thy soul was like a 
star and dwelt apart," " 'Tis education forms the common mind," 
" From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs," " The poets 
have made life brighter," " Men are but children of a larger growth," 
"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just," "An honest man 's 
the noblest work of God," " Some feelings are to mortals given," 
"The man that blushes, is not quite a brute," " Rich gifts wax poor 
when givers prove unkind," " Let your rogues in novels act like 
rogues, and your honest men like honest men," " Heigh ho ! daisies 
and buttercups," " The woman's cause is man's," " Full many a gem 
of purest ray serene," "111 habits gather by unseen degrees," "Labor, 
wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven," " Conduct is three- 
fourths of life," "If to do were as easy as to know what were good 
to do," "When God fashioned the germ of the rose-tree," " He pray- 
eth best who loveth best," " Procrastination is the thief of time," 
" Life means, be sure," " Brevity is the soul of wit," " Order is Heav- 
en's first law," " 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view," 

" Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray." 



INDEX 



Adams, Mrs. Sarah, 330. 
Abbott, Jacob, 198. 
Abbott, J. S. C, 198. 
Abbott, Lvman, 198. 
Addison, Joseph. 282-284. 

Writings, sketch of ,282. 

Character and criticism, 

283. Quoted, 279, 283,284, 

288, 292, 307. 
Agassiz, Louis, 198. 
Akenside, Mark, 285. 
Alcott, A. B., 198. Quoted, 

119, 135. 
Alcott, Louisa M., 198. 

Ouoted, 112, 138. 
Alden, Mrs., 198. Ouoted, G2. 
Aldrich, T. B, 198. 
Alexander, Mrs. C. F.,330. 
Allston, Washington, 14. 
Appleton, T. G. Ouoted, 

095 

Arnold, Edwin, 330. 
Arnold, Matthew, 247-249. 

Writings, 247, Sketch of, 

references, character 

and criticism, 248. 

Ouoted, 103, 104, 231, 248, 

249, 253, 318. 
Arnold, Thomas, 330. 
Ascham, Roger, 310. 
Atlantic Monthly, 61. 
Audubon, John j"., 199. 
Austen, Jane, 330. 
Austin, Alfred, 330. 
Austin, Jaue, 199. 
Bacon, Francis, 307-309. 

Writings, sketch of, 307. 

Character and criticism, 

308. Quoted, 308, 309, 321. 
Bailey, P. J., 330. 
Baillie, Joanna, 330. 
Bancroft, George, 176-177. 

Writings, sketch of, 

quoted, 177. 
Barbour, John, 314. 
Barr, Amelia E-, 199. 
BarrieJ. M., 330. 
Barrow, Isaac, 297. 
Bascom, John, 199. 
Bates, Arlo, 199. 
Baxter, Richard, 297. 
Bayly, Ada Ellen, 330. 
Beaconsfield, Lord. See 

Disraeli. 
Beaumont and Fletcher, 

310. 
"Bede, Cuthbert." See 

Bradley. 
Beecher, H. W., 199. Quoted, 

326 
Beecher, Lyman, 199. 
Beers, Henry A., 199. 



Bellamy, Edward, 199. 

Bellows H. W. Ouoted, 
175. 

Benjamin, S. G. W., 200. 

Berkeley, Geo.,287. Ouoted, 
287. 

Besant, Walter, 330. 

Bible, The, 318-325. Books 
of, 318. The Bible and its 
teachings, 320. Refer- 
ences, 322. Scriptural al- 
lusions and quotations, 
322-323. Ouoted, 316, 324, 
327. 

BlackieJ. S., 330. 

Blackmore, R. D., 330. 

Black, William, 330. 

Boker, G. H., 200. Quoted, 
155. 

Bonar, Horatius, 331. 

Book, 89, 130, 131, 176, 195. 

Boswell, James, 278. 

Bowring, Sir John, 331. 

Boyesen, H. H., 200. 

Bradley, Edward, 331. 

Bradstreet, Anne, 200. 

Bright, John. Quoted, 11, 
71, 195. 

Bronte, Anne, 331. 

Bronte, Charlotte, 331. 

Bronte, Emily, 331. 

Brooke, Stopford, 331. 
Quoted, 16, 313. 

Brooks, Dr. Edward. 
Quoted, 326. 

Brooks, Maria, 200. 

Brooks, Phillips, 200. 
Quoted, 78. 

Browne, C. F., 200. 

Browne, Sir Thos., 297. 

Browning, Mrs. E. B., 224- 
227- Writings, sketch of, 
224. References, charac- 
ter and criticism, 225. 
Quoted, 142, 226, 322, 327. 

Browning, Robert, 227- 
229. Writings, sketch of, 
227. References, charac- 
ter and criticism, 228. 
Ouoted, 228, 229. 

Brown, John, 331. 

Bryant, W.C., 22-34. 
Sketch of, Fanny Fair- 
child, 25. Mrs. Bryant, 
26, 29, 32. Brvant Home- 
stead, 27, 28. Death, char- 
acter and criticism, 29. 
Friends, references, 31. 
Cedarmere, writings, 32. 
Quoted, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 
28, 29, 33, 34. 

Bryce, James, 331. 



Bulwer-Lytton, E. G., 331. 
Quoted, 325, 326. 

Bulwer-Lytton, E. R., 331. 
Ouoted, 224, 327. 

Bunyan, John, 290. 

Burke, Edmund, 277. 
Quoted, 321, 325, 326. 

Burnett, Mrs. F. H., 200. 

Burney, Frances. See 
D'Arblay. 

Burns, Robert, 271-274. 
Writings, sketch of, 271. 
References, character 
and criticism, 273. Quot- 
ed, 272, 273, 274. 

Burroughs, John, 200. 
Quoted, 5, 228. 

Burton, Robert, 311. 

Bushnell, Horace, 200. 

Butler, Samuel, 291. Quot- 
ed, 291. 

Butterworth, Hezekiah, 
201. 

Byron, Lord, 25 5-2 56. 
Writings, sketch of, 255. 
Ouoted, 255, 256, 262. 

Cable, George W., 201. 

Caine, Hall, 331. 

Campbell, Thos., 260. 
Ouoted, 255, 261, 316, 326. 

Carleton, Will, 201. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 242-244. 
Writings, sketch ofjane 
Welsh, 242. References, 
character and criticism, 

243. Quoted, 231, 233, 243, 

244, 249, 320, 325. 

Cary, Alice, 164-168. Writ- 
ings, 165, 167. Sketch of, 
166. Ouoted, 165, 168. 

Cary, Phoebe. See Alice 
Cary. Quoted, 164, 167. 

Chambers's Cyc. of Eng. 
Lit. Quoted, 273, 276, 305. 

Channing, W. E-, 174-176. 
Writings, sketch of, 174. 
Quoted, 26, 65, 176, 193. 

Channing, W.E-, the poet, 
175. Ouoted, 134, 136, 138. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 311-314. 
Writings, sketch of, 311. 
Canterbury Tales, 312. 
Character and criticism, 
313. Quoted, 313. 314. 

Cheever, Geo. B., 201. 

Child, Lydia Maria, 201. 

Choate, Rufus, 201. Ouoted, 
181. 

Christian Index. Quoted, 
161. 

Clarke, Chas. C, 331. 

Clarke, James F., 201. 



ikDEX 



341 



Clarke, Mrs. Marv, 331. 

Classics, The, 315-317. 

Clemens, S. L., 201. 

Clemmer, Mary, 217. Quot- 
ed, 166. 

Cleveland, Miss R. E., 201. 

Cobbe, Francis P., 331. 

Coffin, C. C, 202. 

Coleridge, S. T., 257. Quot- 
ed, 175, 257, 258, 311, 321. 

Collier, W. F. Quoted, 240. 

Collins, Wilkie, 331. 

Collins, Wm., 285. Ouoted, 
285. 

Collyer, Robert, 202. 

Congden, Chas. Quoted, 
115. 

Congreve. Quoted, 289. 

Conway, Moncure D., 202. 

Cook, Prof. A. S. Ouoted, 
319. 

Cook, Eliza, 331. 

Cook, J. E-, 202. 

Cooke, R. T., 202. 

Cooper, J. F., 171-172. Writ- 
ings, sketch of,171. Quot- 
ed, 172. 

"Cornwall, Barry." See 
Proctor, B. W. 

Cowley, Abraham, 296. 

Cowper, William, 274-276. 
Writings, sketch of, 274. 
Character and criticism, 

275. Quoted, 267, 269, 275, 

276, 288, 291, 292, 325. 
Cox, S. S., 202. 

Craik, D. [Mulock], 331. 

"Craddock, Chas. Egbert." 
See Murfree. 

Cranch, C. P., 202. 

Crashaw. Ouoted, 323. 

Crawford, Francis M., 202. 

Crockett, S. R., 332. 

Croly.J. C, 202. 

Cross J. W. Quoted, 237, 238. 

Curtis, Geo. Wm., 202. 
Quoted, 17, 46. 

Custer, E. B., 203. 

Dana, R. H., 203. 

Dana, R. H., Jr., 203. 

Daniel, Samuel, 310. 

D'Arblay, Madame, 332. 

Darxvin, C. R., 332. 

Davis, Rebecca H., 203. 

Dawes, Mary E. Ouoted, 29. 

Defoe, Daniel, 286. Quoted, 
286. 

Deland, Margaret, 203. 

DeQuincey, Thos., 259. 
Quoted, 10, 300. 

DeTocqueville. Quoted, 
226. 

Dickens, Charles, 233-235. 
Writings, sketch of, 233. 
References, cha r a c t e r 
and criticism, 234. Quot- 
ed, 12, 169, 235, 242, 327. 

Dickenson, A. E-, 203. 



Disraeli, Benjamin, 332. 

Dodge, Mary A., 203. 

Dodge, Mar}^ Mapes, 203. 

Dowden, Edward. Quoted, 
300. 

Doyle, Conan, 332. 

Drake, Joseph Rodman, 
203. 

Draper, J. W., 204. 

Drayton, Michael, 310. 

Drummond, Henry, 332. 

Dryden, John, 288-290. 
Writings, sketch of, 288. 
Character and criticism, 
289. Quoted. 288, 289, 290, 
298, 326. 

Dunbar, Wm., 314. 

Duyckinck, E- A., 204. 
Quoted, 176. 

Duyckinck, Geo., 204. 

Dwight, Timothy, 204. 

Eastman, Elaine Goodale, 
204. 

Edgeworth, Maria, 332. 

Edinburgh Review. Quot- 
ed-, 171. 

Education, 20, 21, 194, 195. 

Edwards, Amelia B., 332. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 204. 

Eggleston, Edward, 204. 

Eliot, George, 236-239. 
Writings, sketch of, 
name, 236. References, 
character and criticism, 
friends, 237. Quoted, 
115, 236, 237, 238, 239, 242. 

Eliot, John, 204. 

Elliott, M. H., 204. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 
103-118. Sketch of, 107. 
Old Manse, 108. Lydia 
Jackson, 109, 113, 116. 
Home, 110, 116. Children, 
111,116. Friends, 112, 116. 
Character and criticism, 
references, 115. Tran- 
scendentalists, writ- 
ings, 116. Quoted, 25, 105, 
106, 109, 111, 114, 117, 118, 
135, 139, 231, 249, 298, 323, 
327. 

Encyclopaedia Brittanica. 
Quoted, 35. 

Evelyn, John, 292. 

Everett, Edward, 185-187. 
Orations, 185, 186. Sketch 
of, 186. Quoted, 12, 181, 
186, 187, 195. 

Farrar, F. W. Quoted, 221, 
222. 

Fawcett, Edgar, 204. 

"Fern, Fanny." See Par- 
ton, Mrs. 

Field, Eugene, 205. 

Field, Kate. Quoted, 
233. 

Fields, Annie, 205. Quoted, 
58, 59, 60, 79, 80. 



Fields, James T., 205. 

Quoted, 129, 234, 240, 320. 
Fiske, John, 205. 
Fletcher, John, 310. 
Ford, John, 310. 
Foote, Mary H., 205. 
"Forester, Fanny." See 

Judson. 
Forsterjohn. Quoted, 242. 
Fothergill, Jessie, 332. 
Fox, John, 311. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 205. 

Quoted, 327. 
Fremont, Jessie B. Quoted, 

79. 
Freneau, Philip, 206. 
FroudeJ. A., 332. Quoted, 

228. 
Fuller, Margaret. See 

Ossoli. 
Fuller, Thomas, 297. 
Furness, H. H., 206. 
Garfield, J. A. Quoted, 85, 

194, 225, 265. 
Garrison, W. L., 217. Quot- 

Gaskeli, Mrs. E. C, 332. 

Gay, John, 284. Ouoted, 284. 

Geikie, Dr., 332. Quoted, 
222, 227, 230, 231, 245, 275, 
282, 326. 

Gibbon, Edward, 277. 

Gilder, R. W., 206. 

Gladden, Washington, 206. 
Quoted, 160, 161. 

Gladstone, W. E-, 332. 
Quoted, 320. 

Godwin, Parke, 206. Ouot- 
ed, 226. 

Goethe. Quoted, 124, 326. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 265- 
267. Writings, sketch of, 
265. References, charac- 
ter and criticism, 266. 
Quoted, 265, 266, 267. 

Goodale, Dora Read, 204. 

Goodrich, S. G.. 206. 

Gosse, E. W., 332. 

Gower, John, 314. 

Grant, U. S. Quoted, 321. 

Gray, Thomas, 269-271. 
Writings, sketch of, 269. 
Character and criticism, 
270. Quoted, 270, 271. 

Greeley, Horace, 206. Quot- 
ed, 189. 

Green, J. R., 332. Quoted, 
313, 

" Greenwood, Grace." See 
Ivippincott. 

Griswold, Mrs. Quoted, 
273. 

Griswold, R. W., 206. Quot- 
ed, 171. 

Hale, E. E., 206. 

Hale, Sarah J., 207. 

Haliburton, T. C, 333. 

Hallam, Henry, 333. 



342 



INDEX 



Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 207. 
Quoted, 316. 

Hamerton, P. G., 333. 

"Hamilton, Gail." See 
Dodge, M. A. 

Hardv, A. S., 207. 

Hardy, Thomas, 333. 

Harris, Joel C, 207. 

Harris, W. T., 207. 

Harrison, Frederick, 333. 

Harte, F. Bret, 207. 

Haweis,H.R.,333. Quoted, 
59, 93, 104. 

Haweis, Mary E., 333. 

Hawthorne, Eliz. Quoted, 
123. 

Hawthorne, Julian, 207. 
Quoted, 124, 125, 129. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 
119-133. Sketch of, 122. 
Sophia Peabody, 125, 126, 
127, 132. Old Manse, 125, 
126, 127. The Wayside, 
126, 127, 128, 132. Friends, 
129, 131. References, 131. 
Writings, 132. Quoted, 
120, 121, 122, 127, 133, 183. 

Hawthorne, Mrs. Quoted, 
126, 127, 183. 

Hay, Mary Cecil, 333. 

Hayne, Paul H., 207. 

Hazlitt. Quoted, 305. 

HeadleyJ.T., 207. 

Hemans, Mrs. 333. 

Herbert, Geo., 310. Quoted, 
310, 326. 

Herrick, Robert, 296. 
Quoted, 296 

"H. H." See Jackson. 

Higginson, T. W., 20 7. 
Quoted, 71. 

Hildreth, Richard, 208. 

Hillard, George S., 208. 
Quoted, 174, 185, 225. 

Hoar, G. F. Quoted, 79. 

Hoar, Mrs. S. Quoted, 139. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 296. 

Holland, J. G., 158-163. 
Sketch of, KHz. Chapin, 
The Buff Cottage. 
Bright wood, Bonnie 
Castle, 160. Character 
and criticism, writings, 
161. Quoted, 159, 160, 161, 
162, 163, 226, 244, 246. 

Holley, Marietta, 208. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 
50-64 Sketch of, 54. 
Birthplace, 55, 61. Ame- 
lia Lee Jackson, 57. Sat- 
urday Club, 58. Charac- 
ter and criticism, 60. 
Friends, references, 61. 
Homes, writings, 62. 
Quoted, 22, 25, 29, 35, 51, 
52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 
63, 64, 67, 78, 81, 169, 181, 
186, 233, 271, 315, 326. 



Hood, Thos., 260. Quoted, 

326. 
Hooker, Richard, 311. 
Hopkins, Mark, 208. 
Hopkinson, Francis. 208. 
Hopkinson, Joseph, 208. 
Howard, Blanche Willis, 

208. 
Howe, Julia Ward, 208. 

Quoted, 190. 
Howells, W. D., 208. 
Hughes, Thomas, 333. 
Humboldt. Quoted, 178,195. 
Hume, David, 277. 
Hunt, Leigh, 333. 
Huxley, T. H., 333. Quoted, 

321. 
Hvde, Edward, 297. 
I n g e 1 o w , Jean, 229-230. 

Writings, 229. Quoted, 

229, 230. 
Irving, Washington, 12- 

21. Sketch of, 13. Ma- 
tilda Hoffman, 15, 16, 19. 

Sunnyside, 15, 16, 19. 

Character and criticism, 

17. Friends, references, 

18. Writings, 19. Quoted, 
13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 
40, 249, 266, 299, 300. 

Jackson, Helen Hunt, 209. 
Quoted, 160. 

James Henry, Jr., 209. 

Jameson, Mrs., 333. Quot- 
ed, 298, 299. 

James I. of Scotland, 314. 

Jefferson, Thos. Quoted, 
321. 

Jeffre}', Francis. Quoted, 
278. 

Jerrold, Douglas, 333. 

Jewett, Sarah, Orne, 209. 

Johnson. Oliver. Quoted, 
75, 191. 

Johnson, Samuel, 267- 
269- Writings, sketch 
of, 267. Quoted, 268, 269, 
277, 279, 282, 286, 311, 326, 
327. 

Jones, Sir Wm. Quoted, 
320. 

Jonson, Ben, 309. 

"Josiah Allen's Wife." See 
Holley. 

Tudd, Sylvester, 209. 

Judson, Emily, 209. 

"June, Jennie." See Croly. 

Keats, John, 261. Quoted, 
261, 262. 

Kennedy, J. P., 209. 

Kingsley, Charles, 333. 

Kirk, Ellen Olney, 209. 

KnowlesJ.S., 333. 

Knox, John, 311. 

Knox, T. W., 209. 

Lamartine. Quoted, 28. 

Lamb, Charles, 258. Quot- 
ed, 259, 305. 



Landor, W. S.,334. Quoted-. 
227, 293. 

Langland, Wm., 314. 

Lanier, Sidney, 209. 

Larcom, Lucvi 209. 

Lathrop, G. P., 210. 

Lathrop, R. H., 210. 

Lazarus, Emma, 210. 

Leckev, W. E. H., 334. 

Leland, C. G., 210. 

Lewes, G. H., 334. 

Life, 222, 224, 284, 317. 

Lillie, Mrs. John. Quoted, 
236. 

Lincoln, Abraham. Quot- 
ed, 293. 

Lippincott, S. J., 210. 

Literature, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 
15, 16. 

Livingstone, David, 334. 

Locke, John, 292. Ouoted, 
321, 326. 

Lodge, Henrv Cabot, 210. 

Lokman. Quoted, 326. 

Longfellow, Henrv W., 35- 
49. Sketch of, 38. Mary 
Storer Potter, 39. Fran- 
ces Appleton, 40, 42, 47. 
Craigie House, 41, 48. 
Friends, 43. Chair, 44. 
Character and criticism, 
46. References, Evange- 
line, 47. Poets' Corner,, 
writings, 48. Quoted, 
17,36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42,43, 
44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 69, 88, 99, 
129, 130, 131, 152, 179, 188,. 
189, 221, 273, 312, 323, 326, 

Longfellow, Samuel, 210. 
Quoted, 42. 

Lossing, B.J., 210. 

Lover, Samuel, 334. 

Lowell, James Russell, 84- 
102. Sketch of, 88. Elm- 
wood, 88, 89, 90, 95, 98. 
Maria White, 91, 92, 96, 
100. Frances Dunlap, 97, 
98,100. Minister to Eng., 
97. Character and criti- 
cism, 99. References, 
writings, 100. Quoted, 
17, 35, 45, 47, 85, 86, 87, 88, 
89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 
97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 
115, 119, 130, 139, 190, 242, 
243, 252, 253, 262, 269, 270, 
278, 280, 288, 289, 293, 294, 
298, 301, 304, 306, 311, 312, 
313, 314, 315, 318, 322, 323, 
326. 

"Lyall.Edna." See Bayly. 

Mabie, H. W., 211. 

Macaulav, Thomas Bab- 
ington"; 231-233. Writ- 
ings, sketch of, 231. Ref- 
erences, character and 
criticism, 232. Quoted, 



INDEX 



343 



232, 233, 255, 282, 291, 292, 
294, 308. 

MacDonald, Geo., 334. 

"Maclaren, Ian," See 
Watson. 

Mahoney, Francis, 334. 

Mahon.Lord. Quoted, 268. 

Mandeville, Sir John, 315. 

Mann, Horace, 193-197. 
Writings, 193. Sketch 
of, 194, Ouoted, 193, 194, 
195, 196, 197, 326. 

Marlowe, Christopher, 309. 

Marryatt, Frederick, 334. 

Martineau, Harriet, 334. 

Martineau, James, 334. 

"Marvel Ik." See Mitchell. 

Massinger, Philip, 310. 

Masterpiece, 17. 

Mather, Cotton, 211. 

Mather, Increase, 211. 

Matthews, Brander, 211. 

McCarthy, Justin, 334. 

Melville, Herman, 211. 

Meredith, Geo. ,334. 

"' Meredith, Owen ." See 
Bulwer-Lvtton, F. R. 

Merriam, G. S. Quoted, 
161. 

Miller, C. H., 211. 

"'Mil ler, Joaquin." See 
Miller, C. H. 

Miller, J. R. Ouoted, 317. 

Milman, H. H., 334. Quot- 
ed, 232. 

Milton, John, 292-296. 
Writings, 292. Sketch 
of, 293. Criticism, 294. 
Ouoted, 293, 295, 298, 305, 
320, 326, 327. 

Mitchell, D. G., 211. 

Mitford, Miss, 334. Quot- 
ed, 12. 

Montagu, Lady M. W.,287. 
Ouoted, 326. 

Montaigne. Ouoted, 325. 

Moore, Thomas, 263. Quot- 
ed, 264, 323, 326. 

More, Sir Thomas, 314. 

More, Hannah, 278. Quot- 
ed, 231, 325, 327. 

Morley, John. Quoted, 17. 

Morris, Lewis, 335. 

Morris, William, 335. 

Motley, John Lothrop, 
179-180, Writings, 179. 
Sketch of, 180. Quoted, 
187. 

Moulton, R. G. Quoted, 
237, 318, 319. 

Muller, Max, 335. 

Murfree, Mary N., 211. 

Newman, J. H. Quoted, 
14. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 286. 
Quoted, 287, 321. 

New York Tribune. Quot- 
ed, 158. 



Norton, C. F-, 217. Quoted 
88. 

Norton, Mrs. C, E. S., 335. 

" North, Christopher." See 
Wilson. 

Nve, F. W., 211. 

Oliphant, Mrs., 335. 

O'Reilly, J. B., 211. 

Osgood, Mrs. F., 212. Quot- 
ed, 147, 327. 

O'Shaughnessy, Arthur, 
335. 

Ossoli, S. M. Fuller, 212. 

Packard, Prof. Quoted, 123. 

Paine, R. T., 212. 

"Pansy." See Alden, Mrs. 

Parker, Theodore, 212. 

Parkman, Francis. 180- 
181. Writings, 180. 
Sketch of, 181. Ouoted, 
65. 

"Parley, Peter." See 
Goodrich. 

Parton, James, 212. 

Parton, Mrs. S. W., 212. 

Patmore, Coventrv, 33o. 

Paulding, J. K. 212". 

Pepys, Samuel, 292. 

Pen n , William. Quoted, 
327. 

Perry, Nora. Quoted, 192. 

Phillips, Wendell, 190-193. 
Addresses, sketch of, 191. 
Quoted. 191, 192, 195. 

Piatt, J. J., 212. 

Piatt, Mrs. S., 212. 

Pickard, S. T. Quoted, 71, 
72, 73, 74, 75. 

Piozzi, H. L., 335. 

Plato. Quoted, 325. 

Poe, Fdgar Allan, 142-149. 
Writings, 142. Sketch of, 
143. Virginia Clem, 147, 
148. Character and criti- 
cism, 147. References, 
148. Quoted, 143, 145, 146, 
147, 149. 

Poetry, 8, 9, 25, 26, 28, 40, 226. 

Poem, 225. 

Poems for school and 
home, 317. 

Poet, 23, 29, 99, 221. 

Pope, Alexander, 278-282. 
Writings, sketch of, 278. 
Character and criticism, 
280. Ouoted, 279, 280, 281, 
307. 

Porter, Noah, 212. 

Porter, Jane, 335. 

Prescott, William Hick- 
ling, 178-79. Writings, 
sketch of, 178. Ouoted, 
179. 

Proctor, Adelaide A., 335. 

Proctor, B. W., 335. 

Prose, 9. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 311. 

Ramsay, Allan, 285 



Reade, Charles, 335. 

Read, Thomas Buchanan, 
172 -173. Paintings, 
poems, sketch of, 172. 
Quoted, 173. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua. 
Quoted, 280. 

Rice, James, 335. 

Richardson, C. F. Quoted, 
119. 

Ridpath,J. C, 213. 

Riley, James Whitcomb, 
213. 

Ritchie, Mrs. Anne, T., 
335. 

Robertson, F. W., 336. 
Quoted, 58. 

Robertson, Dr. Wm., 277. 

Roe, F. P., 213. 

Roosevelt. Theo., 213. 

Rossetti, C. G., 336. 

Rossetti, D. G., 336. 

Rosseau. Ouoted, 321. 

Rusk in, John, 244-247. 
Writings, 244, 246. 
Sketch of, 245. Refer- 
ences, character and 
criticism, 246. Quoted, 
245, 246, 247, 327, 336. 

Sackville, Thos., 310. 

Sanborn, Frank B., 213. 
Ouoted, 108, 138, 139. 

SaTurdav Club, 48, 58. 

Saxe, John Godfrev, 213. 

Schaff, Philip, 213." 

Schiller. Quoted, 326. 

Schreiner, Olive, 336. 

Schurz, Carl. Quoted, 188. 

Scott, Walter, 249-251. 
Writings, sketch of, 249. 
References, character 
and criticism, 250. Quot- 
ed, 12, 250, 251, 252,265. 

Scudder, H.F,., 213. Ouoted 
11, 234, 253. 

Seelev, J. R., 336. 

Shairp, J. C, 336. Quoted, 
65. 

Shakespeare, William, 
298-304. Writings, 298. 
Sketch of, 299. Friends, 
character and criticism, 
301. References, 302. 
Ouoted, 30, 302, 303, 316, 
322, 325. 

Shelley, P. B.,262. Quoted, 
263. - 

Sheridan, R. B. , 278. Quot- 
ed, 327. 

Sidney, Algernon, 297. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 310. 
Ouoted, 297, 325. 

Sigourney, Mrs., 214. 

Simms, W. G., 214. 

Smiles, Samuel, 336. 

Smith, Goldwin, 336. 

Smith, Sarah, 336. 

Smith, Sydnev, 336. 



344 



INDEX 



Southey, Robert, 258. 
Quoted, 258, 274, 275, 318. 

Southwell, Robert, 310. 

Sparks, Jared, 214. 

Spencer, Herbert, 336. 

Spenser, Edmund, 304- 
307. Writings, sketch 
of, 304. Character and 
criticism, 305. Ouoted, 
305. 306, 325. 

Spofford, Mrs. H. E-, 214. 

Sprague, H.B. Ouoted, 18. 

Stanley, Dean."' Ouoted, 
233. 

Stanley, Henry M., 336. 

Stedman, E. C, 214. Quo- 
ted, 8, 9, 23, 31, 35, 45, 46, 
50, 65, 79, 84, 99, 103, 115, 
142, 154, 158, 222, 224, 228, 
229, 230, 247, 248. 

Steele, Sir Richard, 285, 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 
336. 

Stockton, Frank, 214. 

Stoddard, R. H., 214. Quot- 
ed, 130. 

Storrs, R. S., 214. 

Story, W. W., 214. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 
169-170. Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, 93, 169. Sketch of, 
169. Writings, 170. 

"Stretton, Hesba." See 
Smith, Sarah. 

Strickland, Agnes, 337. 

Suckling, Sir John, 296. 

Sumner, Charles, 187-190. 
Noted oration, 187. 
Speeches, sketch of, 188. 
Quoted, 189, 190. 

Swift, Dean, 285. Quoted, 
279, 286. 

Swinbourne, Algernon 
Charles, 337. 

Swing, David, 214. Ouoted, 
9, 10, 13, 15, 20, 21, 32, 37, 
39, 130, 131, 174, 315. 

Taine. Quoted, 221, 250,274, 
275, 283, 301, 305. 

Taylor, Bayard, 150-157. 
Sketch of, 150. Mary Ag- 
new, Cedarcroft, 153, 156. 
Character and criticism, 

154. Friends, references, 

155. Wr i t i n gs , Marie 
Hansen, 156. Quoted. 29, 
151, 152, 154, 157, 224, 225. 

Taylor, Jeremy, 297. 
Temple, Sir Wm., 292. 
Quoted, 292. 



Tennvson. Alfred, 221-223. 
Writings, sketch of, 221. 
References, character 
and criticism, 222. Quot- 
ed, 222, 223, 311, 323, 327. 

Thackeray, William 
Makepeace, 2 40-2 41. 
Writings, sketch of, ref- 
erences, character and 
criticism. Henry Es- 
mond 240. Ouoted, 18. 
233,240,241,265,266. 

Thaxter, Celia L. 214. 

Thomas, Edith M. 215. 

Thompson, Maurice, 215. 

Thomson, James, 285. 
Ouoted, 285. 

Thbreau, Henry D., 134- 
141. Walden, 135, 138. 
Sketch of, 134. Charac- 
ter and criticism, 138. 
Friends, references, 
writings, 139. Ouoted, 
134, 135, 136, 137, V69, 140, 
141,183,315,326. 

Thoreau, Sophia. Quo- 
ted, 137. 

Thornbury, G. W., 337. 

Thrale, Mrs. See Piozzi. 

Tourgee, Albion W., 215. 

Trollope, Anthony, 337. 

Trowbridge, J. T., 215. 

Trumbull, H. Clay. Quo- 
ted, 319. 

Truth, 52, 98. 

"Twain, Mark." See 
Clemens 

Tyler, M.C.,215. 

Venable, W. H., 215. 

Vice, 52. 

Wallace, L,ew, 215. 

Waller, Edmund, 296. 
Ouoted, 296. 

Wal pole, Horace. Quoted, 
279. 

Walton, Izaak, 297. 

Warburton. Ouoted, 326. 

"Ward, Art em us." See 
Browne, C. F. 

Ward, E. S. Phelps, 215. 

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 337. 

Warner, C. D., 215. 

Watson, J. M., 337. 

Watt. Ouoted, 326. 

Wayland, Francis, 215. 

Webster, Daniel, 181-185. 
Speeches, 181. Sketch of, 
182. Writings, 183. Quo- 
ted, 3, 182, 183, 184, 185, 316, 
322. 



Webster, John, 310. 

Weld, Theo. D. Quoted,, 
192. 

Westminster Review.. 
Ouoted, 50, 84. 

Weiss, John, 215. 

Wevman, Stanley J., 337. 

Wharton, Thos. Quoted,. 
312. 

Whatelv. Ouoted, 327. 

Whipple, ET P, 215. Quo- 
ted, 37, 178, 231, 260,. 
263. 

White, E. E , 216. 

White, R. G., 216. 

Whitman, Mrs., 148. Quo- 
ted, 146. 

Whitman, Walt, 216. 

Whitney, Mrs. A. D. T.,. 
216. 

Whitney, W. D., 216, Quo- 
ted, 130. 

Whittier, John Greenleaf, 
65-83. Sketch of, 69. 
Birthplace, 69, 70, 71, 72, 
73, 75, 80. Amesbury, 
75, 76, 80. Friends, 76. 
Character and criticism, 
79. References, 80. Writ- 
ings, 81. Ouoted, 46, 50, 
54, 60, 61, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 
71, 72, 73, 74, 75,77,81,82, 
83, 103, 107, 150, 154, 164, 
167, 169, 175, 183, 184, 187, 
189, 252, 271, 304, 321, 323. 

Wiggin, Kate Douglas, 
216. 

Wilkins, Mary E-, 216. 

Willard, Emma H., 216. 

Willard, Frances, 216. Quo- 
ted, 167, 170. 

Willis, N. P., 216. 

Wilson, Prof., 260. Ouo- 
ted, 271, 298. 

Winter, Wm., 217. Quoted, 
46, 147. 

Wolf, Charles, 337. 

Wordsworth, William, 
2 5 2-2 5 4. Writings, 
sketch of, Rydal Mount, 
252. References, charac- 
ter and criticism, 253. 
Quoted, 249, 254, 294, 296, 
326, 327. 

Wood, Mrs. Henry, 337. 

Woolson, Constance Fen- 
imore, 217. 

Wycliffe, John, 315. 

Young. Edward, 284. Quo- 
ted, 285. 



